the station reopened in 2002 and its single operational platform has the distinction of being the shortest on the National Rail network, at just . The line then carries on north, crossing the historic county border from Inverness-shire into Ross and Cromarty just before reaching Muir of Ord station, which has two platforms and is the site of the first passing loop on the line. The line continues to parallel the A862 as it passes through Conon Bridge station, which reopened in 2013 in a similar style to Beauly and whose platform is just longer than that at Beauly. Shortly after, the line crosses the River Conon and passes through the village of Maryburgh before reaching Dingwall station – the busiest station on the line aside from Inverness, with just over 80 thousand passengers recorded in the 2019–20 financial year. At Dingwall Junction just north of the station, the Kyle of Lochalsh line diverges to the west and runs to . The Far North Line, meanwhile, rejoins the coast and continues northeast along the shoreline of the Cromarty Firth; the railway meets the A9 again shortly after, at the north end of the Cromarty Bridge. The next station on the line is , which closed in 1960 but reopened 13 years later. After Alness the line turns gently eastwards to reach Invergordon station before turning northeast again. The line continues in this direction for nearly without another station until . Located approximately west of Hill of Fearn, the primary source of traffic at the station, it is also the nearest railway stop to the Seaboard Villages. The railway then takes a sharp turn to run northwest for approximately until it reaches Tain station on the south side of the Dornoch Firth. Tain–Helmsdale: Lairg loop and the Sutherland coast A short distance west of Tain, the Far North Line and the A9 part ways again – while the road crosses the Dornoch Firth by means of a bridge, the railway line instead follows the coast of the Firth. In fact, the railway does not return to an open coastline for another until Golspie, even though the distance between Tain and Golspie as the crow flies is only . There have been many unsuccessful proposals to build a new, shorter railway line between the two villages via Dornoch, which led to the existing route via Lairg being sometimes unofficially called the "Lairg