Dalmally Station, Oban North and Lorn, Argyll and Bute

Entry Name: Dalmally Station

Listing Name: Dalmally Railway Station Including Signal Box

Listing Date: 13 September 1993

Category: C

Source: Historic Scotland

Source ID: 346481

Historic Scotland Designation Reference: LB13352

Building Class: Cultural

ID on this website: 200346481

Location: Glenorchy and Inishail

County: Argyll and Bute

Electoral Ward: Oban North and Lorn

Parish: Glenorchy And Inishail

Traditional County: Argyllshire

Tagged with: Railway station

Description

Callendar and Oban Railway, built around 1898. Two-storey, three-bay station and station house with single-storey wing containing offices, glazed awning to platform and signal box on platform to west.

Red sandstone squared and coursed rubble. Base and string courses. Crowstepped gables. North (entrance) elevation: three-bays; doorway to outer right, window to centre and left. Three windows at first floor. Crowstepped gable to centre with wallhead stack. South (platform) elevation: pitched glazed awning with ornamental brackets on iron columns, with square serrations along valancing, with V-shaped section to gable ends to match brackets.

Plate glass to timber sash and case windows. Slate roof. Gable end stacks.

Signal Box: (Map Ref: NS 16040, 27195): Caledonian Railway (Northern Division) Type 2, 1896. Piend-roofed, rectangular-plan signal box. Brick base with two blocked round-arched openings. Small-pane glazing to timber frame windows to west, south and east. Timber forestair to signal cabin. Grey slate.

Statement of Interest

Dalmally Railway Station is a well detailed example of a small through station group in the area. The principal red sandstone building features crowstepped gables and is notable for its distinctive awning with decorative v-shape cast-iron brackets and timber valence.

The Callender and Oban railway line engineered by B and E Blyth, was promoted as an extension of the Dunblane and Callender Railway and became part of the Caldonian. From 1873 it terminated at a terporary station at Tyndrum, the section from Tyndrum to Oban was finally opened in 1880. The two other surviving station houses on this line are at Taynuilt and Oban.

Signal boxes are a distinctive and increasingly rare building type that make a significant contribution to Scotland's diverse industrial heritage. Of more than 2000 signal boxes built across Scotland by 1948, around 150 currently survive (2013) with all pre-1948 mechanical boxes still in operation on the public network due to become obsolete by 2021. The signal box at Dalmally is prominently located on the platform to the right of the station building and is a good example of a Caledonian Railway (Northern Division) Type 2 box installed in 1896. The Type 2 design by the Caledonian Railway first appeared in 1889 but very few now remain. Two larger off-platform examples of the Caledonian Type 2 are listed at Stirling Railway Station (see separate listing). The box at Dalmally was closed in 1987 after the introduction of RETB radio electronic token block signalling.

In the original listed building record the station was dated to around 1875. However, documentary evidence (2023) shows that the original timber station building was destroyed by fire in 1898 (Dundee Evening Telegraph, 16 November 1898; The True Line, Numbers 97 & 99). The present building dates to shortly after the fire.

List description and Statutory Address revised as part of Scottish Signal Box Review (2012-13).

Listed building record revised in 2023 to add information about the fire and amend the date of construction.

External Links

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