On arrival, the crew and relief keeper found that the flagstaff had no flag, none of the usual provision boxes had been left on the landing stage for re-stocking, and more ominously, none of the lighthouse keepers were there to welcome them ashore. The lighthouse was manned by three men: James Ducat, Thomas Marshall, and Donald McArthur, with a rotating fourth man spending time on shore. The relief vessel, the lighthouse tender Hesperus, was unable to sail from Breasclete, Lewis, as planned on 20 December due to adverse weather it did not reach the island until noon on 26 December. When the ship docked in Leith on 18 December 1900, the sighting was passed on to the Northern Lighthouse Board. The first record that something was abnormal on the Flannan Isles was on 15 December 1900 when the steamer Archtor, on a passage from Philadelphia to Leith, noted in its log that the light was not operational in poor weather conditions. It is now monitored from the Butt of Lewis and the shore station has been converted into flats. The light is produced by burning acetylene gas and has a range of 17 nautical miles (20 miles 32 km). A reinforced concrete helipad was constructed at the same time to enable maintenance visits in heavy weather. On 28 September 1971, the lighthouse was automated.

This had a somewhat shorter working life than the railway, becoming redundant in its turn when the helipad was constructed. The railway was removed, leaving behind the concrete bed on which it had been laid to serve as a roadway for a 'Gnat' – a three-wheeled, rubber-tyred cross-country vehicle powered by a 400-cubic-centimetre (24 cu in) four-stroke engine, built by Aimers McLean of Galashiels. In the 1960s, the island's transport system was modernised. In 1925, the lighthouse became one of the first Scottish lights to receive communications from the shore by wireless telegraphy. The cargo was carried in a small four-wheeled bogie. The cable was guided round the curves by pulleys set between the rails, and a line of posts set outside the inner rail prevented it from going too far astray should it jump off the pulleys. The final approaches to the landing stages were extremely steep. In the approximate centre of the island it forked by means of a set of hand-operated points humorously dubbed 'Clapham Junction', in reference to a railway junction in London one branch continued in its curvature to head eastwards to the east landing place, on the south-east corner of the island, thus forming a half-circle, while the other, slightly shorter, branch curved back to the west to serve the west landing, situated in a small inlet on the island's south coast. A track descended from the lighthouse in a westerly direction and then curved round to the south. This was powered by a small steam engine in a shed adjoining the lighthouse. The purpose of the railway tracks was to facilitate the transport of provisions for the keepers and fuel for the light ( paraffin, at that date the light consumed twenty barrels a year) up the steep gradients from the landing places by means of a cable-hauled railway. The 'Clapham Junction' fork is visible at left middle. The remains of the lighthouse railway in 2012.

It is best known for the mysterious disappearance of its keepers in 1900. Flannan can be seen on the slope to the right of the lighthouse on Eilean Mòr.ĥ8☁7′17″N 07☃5′17″W / 58.28806°N 7.58806°W / 58.28806 -7.58806 Coordinates: 58☁7′17″N 07☃5′17″W / 58.28806°N 7.58806°W / 58.28806 -7.58806Ĭylindrical tower with balcony and lantern attached to 1-storey keeper's houseįlannan Isles Lighthouse is a lighthouse near the highest point on Eilean Mòr, one of the Flannan Isles in the Outer Hebrides off the west coast of Scotland.

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