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View Full Version : Archived: Loch Long Torpedo Range, Scotland



andym
22-03-2009, 03:40 PM
A much awaited holiday in Scotland led me to do a search for some quick explores I could do. Unfortunately, as we were staying in a fairly isolated area, there was nowhere I could get to particularly quickly, especially as the really interesting stuff locally was still active. However this was all MoD stuff, and as it mainly involved nuclear submarines and explosives, I thought that, on balance, this should really be avoided.

So with a spare couple of hours, I legged it to the other end of Loch Long to what's left of the old Admiralty Torpedo Testing Range at Arrochar. Unfortunately, most of it has been demolished, and what's left has been on fire, but heck, it was an uncharacteristcally nice day, so it was worth a mooch.

This excellent website gives a full history here (http://www.arrocharheritage.com/HistoryOfTheRange.htm)

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Top location for an explore :)

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From the beach

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Under the pier

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Not much left.

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I'm guessing that these rails were for hauling a boat up the slipway as the gauge is somewhat wider than the ones inside.

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Winch inside what I'm guessing was the boatshed.

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Turntable. The torpedo's were stored and moved round on cradles, and then hauled around on the narrow gauge rails.

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I didn't find a way onto the burnt out end of the pier, the doors had either been welded shut or bricked up. Probably for the best really.

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Alongside the site was a short row of prefab cottages that somehow had escaped the arsonists attention. However, as we all know, house exploration is shit, so I just popped in for the one photo.