KotangaGirl re: Post #1447 - I will oblige as and when I can present something worthwhile on the Ullapool route.
Teddytoot re: Post #1448 - I have McConnel's book on the road to Skye and while commissioners surveyed a line to Ullapool, the HR was definitely behind its extension from Strome Ferry to Kyle of Lochalsh. So much so that the HR felt that it was a case of "either or". I think at one point the GNoS was threatened as a builder of the Ullapool route with running powers granted by Parliament (Apoplectic horror at Inverness) but the HR got its way.
Evilcrow re Post #1449 - great shots, as ever.
IanOHoseason re: Post #1450 - No, not abandoning the NER/NBR. However, Ullapool is a major challenge, even with a rough outline of where the route was to have gone. The recommendation was for the line to actually go to Isle Martin, so as to make it efficient for the fishery. It is this stipulation that my "alternate universe" has bringing in the Admiralty once the HR got its way with the Kyle extension. No doubt it would have been an expensive and terrifically hard line to work, with hard climbs from Garve going Northwest and from Inverbroom Lodge going Southeast. There was the tourist attraction of the Falls of Corrieshalloch/Corrieshalloch Gorge during the summer, though dropping off passengers at a halt near the current gorge viewpoint on the A832 might be an interesting timetabling challenge. Railway staff assigned to signal boxes and permanent way on the line would have had to be hardy souls. My transdem route based on OS50 goes all the way from Inverness to Dingwall, Strathpeffer and Isle Martin. There is the "possibility" of doing it in sections by chopping off bits of the main OS50 transdem as finished. there is also the possibility of the Ullapool line spinning off a line through Strathpeffer on the original, thwarted, proposal for the HR line from Dingwall to Strome Ferry, though justifying that will take some thought.