Have you walked along the Water of Leith Walkway when the ground has dried out but rain has fallen recently? If so, you might have seen the “ghost” image left by the former railway line and the sleepers that supported it.
The rain soaks into the softer ground, but not into the ground that was compressed by nearly 100 years of trains. You may also have walked, run, cycled or ridden through Colinton Tunnel. If so, you will have noticed that it is becoming dark and forbidding with increasing amounts of antisocial graffiti. That is set to change, as the Colinton Tunnel project plans to create a major mural inside the tunnel, providing a visual record of the railway that once ran there and celebrating the heritage of the local communities. LOOKING BACK:
If you grew up near the Caledonian Railway Company’s Balerno Branch Line you might remember the Balerno Pug railway engine and stations at Hailes Halt, Colinton,
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Juniper Green, Currie and Balerno. Local pubs still display photographs of the line, which opened in 1874 to serve the 70-plus mills powered by the Water of Leith. The local villages were tiny, with populations of 200 or less. Mill owners, many living locally, faced long horseback rides to reach their offices in Edinburgh but the railway, with a 15-minute journey from Princes Street Station (aka the Caley Station) – now the Caledonian Hotel – meant that they could pop home for lunch. Our communities were well outside Edinburgh, but city-dwellers soon discovered that a short train journey provided a lovely day out. The line was called “the picnic line” because of the number of church communities that used it to take parishioners away from the smoke and grime of central Edinburgh to the fresh air and greenery of the countryside. That link between urban and rural arguably catalysed the development of today’s thriving residential communities. The advent of buses on paved roads meant that passenger services ceased in 1943. Freight services and occasional passenger “specials” continued until 4th December 1967, when engines and rolling stock were scrapped; lines, sleepers and other fixtures were removed, and the tunnel was closed. The creation of the Water of Leith Walkway in the late 1970s saw the tunnel re-opened, paved and lit. The smoke-blackened walls and ceiling were painted as part of Edinburgh District Council’s Special Measures Programme, giving school leavers skills to help them get jobs. Ian Temple and Charlotte Cottingham, the Landscape Architects who managed much of the programme, created a simple mural @KonectMagazines
