UK's highest railway to close again two months after reopening

The UK’s highest railway is set to close again just two months after it reopened.

The Cairngorm funicular in Aviemore will be out of service for three weeks beginning May 12 while engineers carry out inspections.

The mountain railway opened again in February after being closed for extensive repairs since August 2023, and months after returning to service following four years of repairs costing £25m.

During the closure, calls were made for a public inquiry into the failings of the government agency-owned funicular railway.

Highlands and Islands Conservative MSP Edward Mountain said that businesses across Speyside had suffered because the service had been out of action.

Operators blamed the combination of the scale and technical complexity of the repair work and the challenges of working in an exposed mountain environment for the work taking longer than initially expected.

Cairngorm Mountain (Scotland) Ltd (CMSL) said its in-house team will carry out works including rail grinding, gearbox repairs, undercarriage lubrication, and testing and inspection of the rail welds.

At the same time, Balfour Beatty, working on behalf of estate owner Highlands and Islands Enterprise (HIE), will return to complete their programme of remediation works on the railway viaduct.

CMSL usually carries out annual maintenance on the funicular in November, but has brought the timescale forward this year to run in parallel with the remediation programme and minimise inconvenience to visitors.

The pace of progress on the mountain will depend on a range of factors, CMSL said.

It is expected that some evening work will continue for a period after the funicular service has resumed.

The resort will remain open during the work with ball runs, tubing slide sessions and an adventure park on site.

Upper mountain bike trails are now complete and the full bike park will be open daily, weather permitting, from Monday May 12.

Bookings for the funicular are now open from Monday, June 2 through to the end of October.