The Night Train to the Scottish Highlands
A berth the size of a cupboard, a dram in the lounge car, and waking to mist over Rannoch Moor.
There is a particular romance to boarding a train in one city at night and stepping off in the mountains at dawn.
The Caledonian Sleeper leaves Euston late and rattles north through the dark. The cabins are tiny and the beds narrow, and somehow none of that matters at all.
The case for going slowly
I woke somewhere past Crianlarich to a window full of moor and low cloud, the kind of view no aeroplane will ever give you.
A few things I learned, in no particular order:
- Book a berth, not a seat — the whole point is to sleep through the miles.
- Spend an hour in the lounge car; that’s where the trip happens.
- Pack nothing you can’t carry up a platform at six in the morning.
The journey was not a way to reach the Highlands. The journey was the Highlands, beginning early.
By breakfast I was in Fort William with a whole day ahead, feeling as though I’d been given it for free.