City of Stirling

The village is notable mainly for being at an important crossroads of transport routes. The West Highland Line (a railway) from Glasgow splits approximately five miles to the south at Crianlarich, with one branch heading to Fort Willam and the other to Oban. Tyndrum has a station on each: Upper Tyndrum on the Fort William route and Tyndrum Lower on the Oban route. The somewhat unusual situation exists of two stations serving the same relatively small community, separated physically by only a few hundred yards, but about ten miles apart by rail. This is partly a legacy of the history of the railways in the area, after two separate railways belonging to different railway companies were built through the village. However, the main reason is geography: splitting the line in Crianlarich allows the contours of the glen to be used to avoid very steep climbs heading north or west from Tyndrum. Roads mirror this division: the A82 passes through Tyndrum between Glasgow and Fort William, whilst the A85 to Oban splits off just north of the village.

Tyndrum is a popular tourist village, and is also on the West Highland Way, and has a campsite, hotel, bunkhouse and bed and breakfasts to accommodate walkers.

Overshadowed by Ben Lui, one of the Munros, Tyndrum is also built over the battlefield on which, in 1306 AD, Clan MacDougall defeated Robert the Bruce and took from him the Brooch of Lorne.

Tyndrum is also a former mining centre. The hamlet of Clifton (the row of cottages over the A82 from the Green Welly) are the former mining cottages, and up on the hillside beyond them the tailings of a former lead mine can be seen. The gold mine is a couple of miles to the south and west of Tyndrum at Cononish, situated above Cononish Farm. Although the entrance is now closed off, walkers can explore the site and rangers encourage visitors to take home a souvenir from the thousands of sample cores lying on decaying wooden racks. The owners are reactivating the mine. The rivers around Tyndrum are a popular haunt for gold panners, which some of the landowners tolerate providing the panners do not use mechanical means of extraction