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Victory nears for Pitlochry’s first Thai restaurant as council accepts lease bid

It will be installed in a converted carriage whose roof Tom Cruise runs along in the coming Mission Impossible 7 film.

Isara, Fergus and Mia McCallum at Pitlochry Railway Station.
Isara, Fergus and Mia McCallum at Pitlochry Railway Station. Image: Steve MacDougall/DC Thomson.

The family bidding to open Pitlochry’s first Thai restaurant have been given a boost by the council.

In November 2022, The Courier reported that members of Perth and Kinross’s property sub-committee had agreed to put part of the car park on Rie-Achan Road out for lease.

This was the same spot on which the McCallum family had been given planning permission to open an eatery, which they will call The Wee Choo-Choo, in November 2021.

The applicant behind the car park train carriage restaurant in Pitlochry,Fergus McCallum alongside wife Isara McCallum (right) and daughter Mia McCallum (left)
The McCallum family. Image: Steve MacDougall/DC Thomson.

Now, after a three-month public tender, the council has informed the family that the lease to the car park next to Pitlochry Railway Station is theirs.

“It has always had the support of virtually the entire community,” said Pitlochry and Moulin community councillor Fergus McCallum.

Mission Impossible stunt

Fergus will run the restaurant with his Thai-born wife Isara and their daughter Mia.

The restaurant will be installed in a converted former first-class railway carriage whose roof Tom Cruise runs along in the coming Mission Impossible 7 film.

An ex-ministry of defence rail brake wagon will be turned into a kitchen for the restaurant.

The family purchased the 1950s Norwegian-built carriage after spotting it in a storage depot in Staffordshire.

It was repainted in French railway livery for the film stunt, in which the steam train plunges off a cliff.

The delayed film is due out in July.

Emerged from series of setbacks

The restaurant proposal has emerged from a series of setbacks in the past few years.

The property sub-committee voted twice – in June 2021 and January 2022 – not to allow the land to be marketed.

These refusals were on parking grounds so PKC commissioned transport consultants SYSTRA – who then appointed a professional data company – to undertake a traffic survey.

Fergus McCallum with the train carriage he wants to set up a restaurant in. Image: Wee Choo-Choo Restaurant.

This was enough to eventually satisfy the committee to make a U-Turn and allow the site to be advertised.

Convener Grant Laing said in the November 2022 meeting: “I have sat on this committee twice before with different views each time.

“I feel the change for me is having the car park survey done.

“Before, we were just listening to opinion.”

Public support in petition

In 2021, a petition was signed by 1,250 people in support of The Wee Choo-Choo.

Speaking to The Courier after receiving confirmation of the lease decision, Fergus McCallum did not want to speculate on when the restaurant would finally open.

He said: “On Monday we were contacted by PKC who said they would be liaising with our lawyers to process the lease.

“It was great that it was put out to public tender for three months and that everyone got a chance to go for it.

“There are many hundreds of locals who are very happy about the decision.”

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