Adjacent to the Boat Hotel in the Boat of Garten is the Strathspey Railway line, a 10 mile stretch of line which runs between Aviemore, across the moors, alongside the River Spey before reaching the Boat of Garten some 5 miles away, the journey continues for another 5 miles reaching its terminus at the tiny village of Broomhill. The history of the line is quite interesting, and very similar to many other heritage lines that run around the country. 

The original line opened in 1863 and ran form Perth to Inverness passing through Aviemore, Grantown and Forres. In 1865 the Highland Railway Company was formed which merged the Inverness to Perth line and the Inverness to Aberdeen lines. 

By 1898 a direct line from Aviemore to Inverness via Carrbridge was opened, which, as a result left the Grantown on Spey line as a secondary line.

During both the First and Second World Wars the railways were extremely busy ferrying troops and their supplies to the bases in and around the Scottish Highland Region.

By 1948 the whole rail infra structure needed huge financial investment which as a result became nationalised and new company formed known as ‘British Railway’.

As a result of the ‘Beeching cuts’ in 1968 the Aviemore to Grantown line was deemed unviable and closed. In 1971 the Strathspey Railway Company was formed by a group of volunteers. After considerable restoration work the line between Avimore to The Boat of Garten was opened in 1978. Work continued to extend the line further and by 2002 was extended to Broomhill. It is hoped that when funding becomes available the line may be extended further to Grantown. 

Today the line is extremely popular and the service offers a wide choice of packages including fine dining, afternoon tea specials and Santa Specials.