The Friends of the Far North Line
Cairdean Na Loine Tuath
the campaign group for rail north of
Inverness - lobbying for improved services for the local user, tourist and freight
operator
Alexander Matheson:
The Railway King of the Highlands
Anne-Mary Paterson & Neil Sinclair, Highland Railway Society, 2025
ISBN: 978-0-9927311-3-7
Softback: 64pp, 165 x 240 mm. £10.00 (£6.00 to HRS members) +£2.00 p+p. http://hrsoc.org.uk/Publications.html
Neil Sinclair's completion of Anne-Mary's final work is a fitting tribute to an author who wrote fascinating books on railway subjects, each taking an aspect of railway history and bringing together all the vital strands of the story - placing them in their historical context and tying them in to the fabric of the world as it was at the time.
The story of Alexander Matheson explains how he made a vast fortune, partly on the back of a trade which would now seem immoral, but which was not seen that way in the United Kingdom of his time.
In many ways Anne-Mary's book is a tribute to a man who has not really been given his rightful place in the story of the Highlands, and of the Far North Line in particular.
I have to confess, in my reviewers role, that this is "my kind of book". It's full of surprising facts, especially memorable being the story of Matheson's involvement in the building of the first commercial railway in China, which was closed and dismantled by the Chinese government 15 months after opening.
This is an engaging, friendly, and very readable account, which I don't hesitate to commend to all with an interest in the Far North Line and its history.