The Sutherland Railway was projected to run from the Bonar Bridge station to Brora, nearly 33 miles, and it obtained its authorising Act of Parliament on 29 June 1865.

In fact Mitchell was able to point out that contracts he had let for the work averaged £5,773 per mile, a very low figure, and there was an enduring friction between the two men.

Notwithstanding Mitchell's economy, the funds for construction had been exhausted by the time the line had been built as far as Golspie in 1868, six miles short of Brora.

The Highland Railway was itself in a serious cash-flow crisis at the time, and the directors doubted that the necessary Extraordinary Shareholders’ Meeting would agree to the allocation of such a large sum, to what was suspected as being the personal plaything of the Duke.

The Duke of Sutherland was himself a major shareholder in the Highland Railway, and a director of the company, and his continual pressure on the matter made things very difficult.

The Ross-shire company’s turntable and engine shed at Bonar Bridge were sold to the Sutherland Railway, and transferred to Golspie.

[6] A service of coaches, running in connection with the trains, was established between Golspie and Wick and Thurso, and between the Mound (at the head of Loch Fleet) and Dornoch.

[4] For the time being, trains stopped by request at Culrain to pick up or set down passengers; but by 1873 it figured in the timetables as an ordinary station.

Up to the end of 1916 a third-class single ticket between these stations cost one halfpenny, the lowest fare on the Highland Railway.