Tulloch Bridge WMO03047 – How railway stations and weather stations became so closely associated.

58.86662 -4.70805 Met Office CIMO assessed Class 4 Temperature records from 1/9/1990

Tulloch Bridge is a railway station on the West Highland line which has often been voted the most scenic railway line in the world. The railway station is 14 miles east-northeast of Fort William, with the weather station itself just over a mile south of the railway and a similar distance north from the Lochaber Hydroelectricity Scheme. Tulloch Bridge is a fully equipped site specifically intended for weather forecasting from its very earliest days.

The modern Met Office was originally established in 1854 by Vice Admiral Robert FitzRoy in the wake of disastrous losses of ships and mariners due to unpredicted storms. A rapid forecast system was required with the most critical aspect after actually taking details of current weather conditions at weather stations getting those readings to a central point for meteorological interpretation. For remote areas the rail network and its associated telegraph system became invaluable allowing transmission of readings in minutes that was simply not possible prior.

Tulloch Bridge had a weather station operated by the rail staff operating from the opening of the station in 1894. In common with many other weather sites in those days, they were run by separate organisations ( in this case the railway company itself) and supplied to the Met Office for a fee. The exact location of the site is not now known nor are records available online but it is likely they were not fully comprehensive anyway nor appropriate for long term temperature reconstruction. The most probable location would have been at the railway station itself. Below is the operational site from 1982 though archived temperature records only start in 1990.

It is fairly obvious why this site is rated as a lowly Class 4. It is at the foot of a small hillock (Drumlin) with many more around typical of this post glacial landscape. These Drumlins will create all manner of wind shelter, shading, cold air drains and general micro climate distortions that will make the temperature readings not representative of the wider area. Additionally at an elevation of 249 metres the site sits close to the relatively low lying route of the railway line – surrounding spot heights are up 1,125 metres.

Sites such as Tulloch Bridge are common in remote areas where convenience of data transmission, power supplies and access were the driving forces. These sites were intended for immediate forecasting of extreme weather across a wide range of parameters of which wind speed, direction, air pressure and precipitation were much more important than accurately recording temperature to the 1st decimal point of a degree.

The Met office used to admit to the inappropriate nature of many of its sites for accurate historic climate reporting , clearly stating

“It is unavoidable that some sites do not meet all these requirements, particularly where a station set up for one purpose gradually takes on a different role,“

This former pragmatism seems to now be conveniently dispensed with to the extent of their “implication” of readings onto sites prior to their existence. Tulloch Bridge has no other weather stations in its near vicinity to provide readings for the area prior to its own readings from 1990. This interactive map has flags showing all temperature recording sites over the years, Tulloch Bridge is in the centre at the head Loch Treig.

This total absence of reliable data prior to 1990 from anywhere near or even remotely similar in climate to Tulloch Bridge does not seem to overly trouble the Met Office. Below are the annual means for that 1961 to 1990 prehistory of the site.

And here are those same means for 1991 to 2020

I always find it remarkably odd the dramatic variations noted between sites around the UK. Whilst the even more modern Killowen in Northern Ireland manages a 1.79°C increase in mean minimum over the two 30 year periods (the first period one of pure artificial creation) the likes of Tulloch Bridge (again with an artificially created first 30 year period) only manages a 0.4°C increment in mean minimum. How do these CO2 molecules know how to be so discriminatory in their effects? Or is the reality that a combination of poor sites and creative accounting are simply being manipulated rather badly?

In conclusion Tulloch Bridge, like so many other Met Office sites, is good at what it was originally intended for, however, the subsequent transfer to climate reporting is clearly totally inappropriate. Met Office meteorologists fully understand this but it is quite apparent that a section of “Climate Scientists” have taken to modifying data to suit a predetermined agenda.

Source: https://tallbloke.wordpress.com/2026/01/26/tulloch-bridge-wmo03047-how-railway-stations-and-weather-stations-became-so-closely-associated/