Steam Memories North East Scotland
Images from the Neville Stead collection Compiled by David Spaven
Steam Memories North East Scotland
Images from the Neville Stead collection Compiled by David Spaven
© Images and design: Neville Stead / The Transport Treasury 2021. Text David Spaven ISBN 978-1-913893-03-3 First Published in 2021 by Transport Treasury Publishing Ltd. 16 Highworth Close, High Wycombe, HP13 7PJ Totem Publishing, an imprint of Transport Treasury Publishing.
The copyright holders hereby give notice that all rights to this work are reserved. Aside from brief passages for the purpose of review, no part of this work may be reproduced, copied by electronic or other means, or otherwise stored in any information storage and retrieval system without written permission from the Publisher. This includes the illustrations herein which shall remain the copyright of the copyright holder. www.ttpublishing.co.uk Printed in the UK by Henry Ling Limited, at the Dorset Press, Dorchester DT1 1HD. ‘Steam Memories North East Scotland’ is one of a series of books on specialist transport subjects published in strictly limited numbers and produced under the Totem Publishing imprint using material only available at The Transport Treasury. Front cover: (1) Former Great North of Scotland Railway Class D40 4-4-0 No. 62270 runs round its Banff branch train at the Tillynaught junction in this view looking north on 17 May 1952. For a modest junction, Tillynaught had a surprisingly elaborate station building, including protective platform canopies which are seen to good effect here, but would not survive much longer. In the mid-1950s the branch had only four passenger trains a day in each direction but this had increased to no fewer than 10 by the time of its 1964 closure - presumably a late but unsuccessful attempt to boost patronage in the face of growing bus and car competition. Frontispiece: (2) The tiny wooden platform at Golf Club House Halt – not opened until 1914 – is hidden by D40 No. 62270 and the short train it is hauling from Tillynaught to Banff in this panoramic view of the Moray Firth taken on 17 May 1952. In the 1900s the Great Western Railway had pioneered the introduction of halts, which were typically unstaffed stopping-points between orthodox stations, initially without platforms, with tickets bought on the train but other railway companies were slower to innovate in this way. Perhaps uniquely for a Scottish branch, no fewer than three out of the four intermediate stations on the Banff line were halts: Bridgefoot, Golf Club House, and Ordens. Rear Cover: (82) Class D41 4-4-0 locomotive No. 62241 traverses a typical rural Banffshire scene at an unknown location along the valley of the River Spey, hauling a westbound passenger train over the 33-mile cross-country Speyside Line linking Craigellachie and Boat of Garten. Built in the 1890s for the Great North of Scotland Railway, 22 of the 32 D41s survived through the London & North Eastern Railway era to the nationalisation of the rail system in 1948. This photo illustrates one of the final route duties of the class, prior to the last D41 being withdrawn in 1953.
Introduction
T
he Victorian writer WM Acworth characterised the network of the Great North of Scotland Railway (GNoSR) as ‘all branch line’, while giving the Highland Railway – its neighbour to the west – the soubriquet ‘all mainline’ i.The GNoSR served generally lowland terrain, with dispersed agricultural settlements and small market centres across North East Scotland, while the Highland’s network of long straggling routes in many cases followed the only geographically feasible corridor. That distinctive character of the GNoSR is well illustrated by this selection of photos from Neville Stead’s collection, largely covering the period from the 1940s to the mid-1960s. The album focuses firstly on the city of Aberdeen where Anglo-Scottish passenger expresses and long-distance freight trains met local services, and is then organised geographically along key crosscountry routes and branch lines. A brief history of North East Scotland’s railways Trains first reached Aberdeen in 1850, when the Aberdeen Railway (later part of the Caledonian Railway) completed its route from the Central Belt to a terminus initially at Ferryhill and later that year a mile further north at Guild Street station. The GNoSR began running trains from Kittybrewster (in the city’s northern suburbs) to Huntly in 1854, but it was not until 1867 that a through route across the city was opened – focused on a new ‘Joint’ Caledonian / GNoSR station at Guild Street. By that time the overwhelming majority of the GNoSR’s lines were operational – but it would not be until 1903 that its network was completed, with the opening of the ‘Light Railway’ from Fraserburgh to St Combs. The 1923 ‘Grouping’ consolidated all Britain’s railways into just four companies, the largest of these being the London, Midland & Scottish Railway (LMS), incorporating the Highland – with the GNoSR going to the London & North Eastern Railway (LNER).
The next big change for the rail industry came with nationalisation in 1948, as part of the radical programme of the first post-war Labour Government. While competition from the bus, the car and the lorry had been growing since the First World War there had been little change in the rail network across North East Scotland, despite steadily declining traffic. The first significant withdrawal came in 1951 with the closure to passengers of the 29¾-mile branch line to Macduff. Across the country, 1951 saw the largest number of route service withdrawals (18) in a single year in Scotland’s railway history. From the mid-1950s, with the rapid growth of car ownership, British Railways (BR) no longer made a profit, and by the end of the decade the Conservative Government was panicking about BR’s losses. The astute and clinical Dr Richard Beeching, a technical director with the chemicals giant ICI, joined the rail industry in 1961 and was subsequently appointed Chairman of the British Railways Board – with a core remit to eliminate the railway losses. There was widespread expectation that Dr Beeching would propose many service withdrawals, but the sheer scale of his prescription – published in the infamous 1963 report – came as a shock. Passenger services were to be withdrawn from 5,000 route miles across Britain (one third of the network), and 2,363 stations would be closed (more than half). North East Scotland was one of the worst-hit regions, with every passenger route – other than the Aberdeen-Keith main line – closed between 1964 and 1968. Today – other than the two-mile freight branch from Kittybrewster to Waterloo Quay – the former GNoSR rail network is ‘all main line’. The character of the railway portrayed Neville Stead was born in Hessle, near Hull, in 1937. By the time of his first train-based holiday in Aberdeen in 1951, he was
already deeply enthusiastic about ’the railway’. Resident in Whitley Bay since 1966, over subsequent decades Neville has accumulated a vast collection of railway photos, now in the care of the Transport Treasury.
By the time of most of the photos in this selection, that picture of a halcyon era was fraying at the edges, but the station shots in the album show still well-maintained buildings, often with carefully-tended gardens – a seemingly unchanged fixture in local life. But a brutal future lay ahead.
Most of the photos here, largely placed in chronological order within each geographical section, capture the lull between the 1951 closure of the Macduff branch and the 1963 publication of the Beeching Report: the last years of steam in North East Scotland. After the opening chapter on the city of Aberdeen, the album predominantly portrays rural railways – small-scale operations which would not survive the ‘progress’ represented by the growth of competition from buses and, in particular, increasing car ownership. They encapsulate another world, with traditional architecture providing the attractive setting for labourintensive railway operations which would have been readily recognised by Victorian forebears. The folk using such branch lines were neatly summed up by the railway historian David St John Thomas:
David Spaven has spent his working life in the rail industry and is the author of eight books, including two award-winners: Mapping the Railways and Highland Survivor: the story of the Far North Line. His forebears came from Banffshire and in his childhood he travelled on many of the lines showcased here. Acknowledgements and sources:
Passengers represented the full cross-section of the community in a way not shared by expresses . . . Most were on local journeys, about their everyday business; some never travelled on any train but that running through their own valley. Few would visit even half the places in the pictures hung under the luggage racks, even though all these were of places served by the same railway.ii
There was a strong emotional attachment to the country station, perhaps best exemplified by John Betjeman’s paeans of praise to the rural railway during the golden age of wireless broadcasting:
Thanks for intelligence on a number of the photos in the album are due to members of the Great North of Scotland Railway Association (GNSRA), in particular David Fasken, Keith Fenwick and Graham Maxtone. Other sources of information included: • Then And Now Volume 2, Mike Cooper and Graham Maxtone, GNSRA 2020 • Great North Review, Vol. 31, No. 120, GNSRA 1994 • The London & North Eastern Railway Encyclopaedia: https://www.lner.info/ • https://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/ 592-mixed-trains-and-tail-traffic/ ____________________________
i
Acworth, W.M. Scottish Railways, Murray, 1890 – in Mellor, R.E.H. (ed.), The Railways of Scotland: Papers of Andrew C. O’Dell, Centre for Scottish Studies, Aberdeen (undated)
ii
St John Thomas, The Country Railway, Frances Lincoln Limited, 2011 edition
iii
Betjeman, J. (BBC Home Service, 1940) in Trains and buttered toast, John Murray, 2007
. . . one of the deeper pleasures of a country railway station [is] its
silence, broken only by the crunching of a porter’s feet on the gravel, the soft country accent of the stationmaster and the crash bang of a milk can somewhere at the back of the platform . . . if you want to see and feel the country, travel by train.iii
Alan Young's hand-drawn map shows the extent of the ex-Great North of Scotland Railway (GNoSR) network in 1955, during the lull between the 1951 closure to passengers of the Macduff branch and the 1963 publication of the Beeching Report which would decimate North East Scotland's rail network. Principal stations are shown, together with those featured in the photos and their captions, as are connecting ex-Highland Railway (HR) and ex-Caledonian Railway (CR) lines to the west and south respectively.
Aberdeen
(3) Part of the impressive ‘roundhouse’ at Kittybrewster engine shed frames ex-GNoSR Class G10 No. 6884 on 22 August 1936. This locomotive class was traditionally associated with the Aberdeen suburban services (‘Subbies’) which had been introduced from 1887 (to Dyce on the main line to Keith) and 1894 (to Culter on the Deeside Line). The Subbies were withdrawn – due to bus and tram competition – in 1937, and most of the G10s were scrapped over the next three years. Kittybrewster shed was opened in 1854 and survived as a steam facility for the former GNoSR network until 1961, when it was converted into a diesel 'Motive Power Depot' – succumbing to complete closure in 1967 after most of the lines it served had lost their passenger services.
(4) Former GNoSR Class D40 4-4-0 No. 2280 Southesk sits at the head of a passenger service bound for Macduff at Aberdeen Joint station's bay Platform 12 in the mid to late 1940s. Note the distinctive platform number signs and the abbreviated 'NE' rather than 'LNER' on the tender side. Built in 1920 by the North British Locomotive Company in Glasgow, Southesk was not one of the eighteen D40 locomotives which passed from LNER into British Railways ownership in 1948. Fortunately sister engine Gordon Highlander, the only surviving GNoSR locomotive, was saved from the scrap yard and is now based - as a static exhibit - at the Scottish Transport Museum in Bo'ness.
(5) A gaggle of young enthusiasts watch Class A2 4-6-2 Pacific No. 60531 Bahram drawing a southbound express out of Aberdeen Joint station on 29 July 1953. Designed in LNER days, all but one of the A2s - including Bahram - were introduced to service under British Railways after nationalisation in January 1948. They were particularly suited to the northernmost (Edinburgh-Dundee-Aberdeen) leg of the East Coast Main Line, with its stiff gradients and sharp curvature. Bahram, named after a thoroughbred racehorse, was withdrawn from service in 1962, together with most of its 14 sister locos, but happily 60532 Blue Peter survived into preservation.
(6) The driver of Class J37 0-6-0 locomotive No. 64630 is on the lookout for a signal as he waits just south of Aberdeen Joint station on 29 July 1953. Built at the Cowlairs (Glasgow) works of the North British Locomotive Company, the J37s were introduced by the North British Railway from 1914 for freight work, and all survived into the early period of nationalisation; it was not until 1966, just two years before the end of steam throughout BR, that the last of the J37s was scrapped. The impressive signal gantry spanning multiple tracks here (plus another nearby) survived until a BR resignalling scheme in 1981 introduced colour-light signalling.
(7) On 29 July 1953 a short freight train from the north sits on the eastern side of Aberdeen Joint station awaiting a signal. The locomotive is No. 64975, one of no fewer than 289 Class J39 0-6-0s designed by Nigel Gresley of the LNER and introduced to mixed traffic from 1926. All of the class had been scrapped by 1962. The name 'Aberdeen Joint' goes back to the opening in 1867 of a joint Caledonian / GNoSR station on this site, eliminating the gap between the previous Guild Street and Kittybrewster / Waterloo Quay stations respectively. The station was largely rebuilt by the two companies between 1913 and 1916.
(8) Class N14 0-6-2 tank engine No. 69125 shunts empty carriages at Aberdeen Joint station on 29 July, 1953. The North British Railway N14s were built in Glasgow by the North British Locomotive Company (an entirely separate enterprise) and introduced to traffic from 1910. No. 69125 was transferred to Aberdeen in 1927 by the LNER - which had 'running powers' over the LMS (former Caledonian) main line south - and worked there until withdrawn by BR in 1954. In this view looking north the train is sitting at Platform 8, one of four through platforms which survived until 1973.
(9) The ‘St Mungo’ express to Glasgow is powered out of Aberdeen Joint station on 31 July 1953 by 'Black Five' Class 5 4-6-0 locomotives Nos. 44957 and 44669. Designed by Sir William Stanier of the LMS, no fewer than 842 of this 'mixed traffic' class were built between 1934 and 1951, and a number survived until the last days of BR steam in 1968. Black Fives had the flexibility to work almost anywhere, their 125t weight being spread over eight axles, and could be seen in most parts of Scotland through the 1950s. Eighteen of the class have been preserved, including 45025 on the Strathspey Railway.
(10) Ex-Caledonian Railway 'McIntosh' Class 0-4-0 tank locomotive No. 56278 shunts the main line approaches to Guild Street goods yard in an undated shot thought to have been taken in the 1950s, looking south east. This class of locomotive, introduced from 1895, was designed for freight and shunting work, and in the 1950s could typically still be seen on the former Caledonian, Glasgow & South Western and Highland systems. Built in 1898 at St Rollox works in Glasgow, 56278 was based at Ferryhill shed from 1948 until going into storage there in 1959, prior to final withdrawal from service in 1962.
(11) Beautifully restored in former GNoSR livery, Class D40 No. 49 Gordon Highlander sits at the head of the Stephenson Locomotive Society / Railway Correspondence & Travel Society five-day ‘Scottish Rail Tour’ at Waterloo Quay goods yard on 13 June 1960. Although part of the BR network, this twomile branch from Kittybrewster was regularly traversed by the connecting dock railway system’s Z4 and Z5 locos (see below). Today this is the last surviving branch line on the former GNoSR system, with the area where the passenger excursion train stood now occupied by a bulk storage facility and private rail sidings for calcium carbonate slurry imported by sea from Norway for use in paper production in Irvine and Workington. (12) Aberdeen Harbour had its own internal dock railway system, for which the GNoSR commissioned Manning Wardle of Leeds to produce two related classes of just four 0-4-2 tank locomotives, introduced in 1915. In this undated shot thought to have been taken in the 1950s, Class Z5 No. 68192 eases its way along Regent Quay in Aberdeen Docks, heading towards the Market Street level crossing linking the docks with BR’s Guild Street goods yard. All the Z4s and Z5s – the last GNoSR locos to remain in service – were withdrawn by 1960 and replaced by diesel shunters. The remaining rails across Market Street survived until the closure of Guild Street depot (with facilities switched to Craiginches and Dyce) in 2009, to make way for a shopping mall.
(13) Z4 No. 68191 propels a freight trip through the narrow gap between the Regent Quay sheds and the Leith-registered Finland cargo ship in an undated shot thought to have to have been taken in the 1950s. The dock railway system - the first sections of which were opened in 1887 - extended well into the distance beyond Waterloo Quay, serving Aberdeen Gas Works and the Sandilands Chemical Works. When the former converted from coal to oil in 1975, the railway lost its coal traffic to the gas works, and the dock system closed completely when the chemical works was shut down in 1985.
(14) Former North British Railway (NBR) Class D34 4-4-0 locomotive No. 62497 Glen Mallie sits at bay Platform 10 at the north end of Aberdeen Joint station in an undated shot thought to be in the 1950s. To the right is Aberdeen North signal box, which would be closed as part of the local resignalling scheme in 1981. The scene is overlooked by a utilitarian modern office block, but much worse was to follow when BR - always under financial pressure from Government - sold off the air space above 'the Great North end' of the station for a shopping mall development which still overshadows this part of the station.
(15) Coronation Class 4-6-2 No. 46249 City of Sheffield powers a mixed postal and passenger train south past Aberdeen Ferryhill signal box in an undated shot thought to have been taken in the 1950s. Behind the locomotive is a Travelling Post Office (TPO) in which Royal Mail staff sorted letters in transit. This train is almost certainly the connecting service to the ‘West Coast Postal’ which - from LMS until BR days - linked Glasgow and London via the West Coast Main Line. The last TPOs ran in 2004, but bespoke electric multiple unit trains continue to convey mail by rail from London to Warrington, Glasgow and Newcastle.
(16) Last-minute instructions or just passing the time of day? Driver and fireman look down and listen attentively to a colleague as their Class V4 2-6-2 locomotive No. 61701 prepares to haul a mixed freight and parcels train out of Guild Street goods yard on 26 June 1957. The V4 - of which just two were built - was the last design of Sir Nigel Gresley of the LNER before he died in 1941. 61701 was not named, but was known unofficially as Bantam Hen to match 61700's official name of Bantam Cock. Both were withdrawn from service in 1957.
(17) Class A4 Pacific 4-6-2 locomotive No. 60011 Empire of India awaits departure on a southbound express from Aberdeen Joint station on 16 June 1962. These distinctive streamlined locos were traditionally associated with the East Coast Main Line (ECML) between London and Edinburgh, but following their displacement from the ECML by diesels in 1961-62, and in light of the poor performance of the new North British Locomotive Company Type 2 diesels between Glasgow and Aberdeen, the A4s enjoyed a swansong on this route from 1962 to 1966. Prestigious three-hour expresses running via the 'race track' Strathmore Route through Coupar Angus and Forfar consisted usually of seven or eight Mark 1 carriages, typically including a Griddle Car with separate bar and dining facilities.
(18) A4 No. 60019 Bittern was one of the small group of this class allocated to work Glasgow-Aberdeen express passenger services in their final years to 1966 withdrawal. Here Bittern is resting between turns on 16 April 1965 beside the coaling plant at its Aberdeen Ferryhill base. Built to a Nigel Gresley design for the LNER, it was introduced to traffic in 1937, and was initially allocated to Heaton engine shed in Newcastle, transferring to Ferryhill in 1963. Bittern was preserved and set a new speed record for a British preserved steam locomotive of 93 mph between York and Newcastle in 2013.
(19) Once a busy spot, the 'Great North end' of Aberdeen Joint station, seen here on 17 April 1965, would lose much of its remaining work over the next six months with the closure to passengers of the Buchan lines to Fraserburgh and Peterhead. By 1973 the bay platforms 10-13 (on the right) had lost their tracks, as had through platforms 8 and 9 (far left), leaving just 6 and 7 (foreground) for remaining train services to Elgin and Inverness. The latter remain to this day. North of the station the railway today is single track through two tunnels but double track was reinstated beyond these as far as Inverurie in 2019 to cope with passenger traffic growth.
(20) Two imposing signal gantries frame a southbound charter train heading past Aberdeen Ferryhill on 1 September 1979, hauled by A4 No. 60009 Union of South Africa. Built at Doncaster Works in 1937, it is one of six surviving A4s. After withdrawal from service in 1966 it was purchased by John Cameron and operated until 1973 on the Lochty Private Railway in Fife. Thereafter it returned to main-line service on charter trains, operating extensively across the British rail network. It was finally withdrawn from main-line service in 2020, 83 years after its construction and 54 years after being withdrawn by BR.
The Deeside Line
(21) Class B12 4-6-0 No. 61552 heads a westbound Deeside service at Banchory on 7 July 1951. This class was introduced from 1911 by the Great Eastern Railway, designed to haul express passenger trains from London Liverpool Street station, but the locomotives’ low axleload eventually made them ideal candidates for work elsewhere, and between 1931 and 1942, 25 were transferred by the LNER to the former GNoSR lines. As more modern locomotives became available in the late 1950s, the pace of withdrawal of B12s quickened, and all the class had been withdrawn by 1961. Sadly, all evidence of Banchory's attractive station have long disappeared, following the controversial closure of the Deeside Line in 1966..
(22) Seen here on 21 May 1952 between turns at Ballater engine shed is Class B12 No.61552 (left), together with Class 2P 4-4-0 No. 40603. The Midland Railway introduced the Class 2P for light passenger work from 1912, and a subsequent build by the LMS from 1928 - including 40603 - saw many of the class routinely at work across BR Scottish Region, although all had been scrapped by 1962, save B12 No. 61572 which has survived in preservation on the North Norfolk Railway. Ballater was a sub-shed of Aberdeen Kittybrewster (61A) despite being closer to Aberdeen Ferryhill (61B), which concentrated on main line work to and from the south.
(23) Ready to return the 43 miles to Aberdeen, ex-NBR Class D34 No. 62479 Glen Sheil sits at the head of a short train of pre-nationalisation coaches at Ballater's long platform on 1 February 1953. This locomotive class, built in 1917, was predominantly associated with the West Highland Line and Central Scotland operations. The platform here was intended to be a through platform (for the proposed extension to Braemar) and space was left for another platform serving incoming trains from the west, but neither was ever built. The main station building survived the post-closure years and although severely damaged by fire in 2015 was subsequently immaculately restored to house an information centre, library, tearoom and bistro.
(24) Class D40 No. 62275 Sir David Stewart sits at the head of an Aberdeen-bound train at Ballater in an undated shot thought to have been taken in the early to mid-1950s. All of the class - except Gordon Highlander, earmarked for preservation - were withdrawn by 1958, replaced initially by more modern BRcommissioned steam engines. They in turn were hurriedly displaced by diesel locomotives which began regular operations in ex-GNoSR territory in 1959. On the Deeside Line regular steam operation on passenger services ceased in 1958, giving way to a unique battery electric railcar, and, later, diesel multiple units.
The main line to Keith
(25) Ex-GNoSR veteran Class D43 4-4-0 No. 6814 sits in the 'centre road' between the Up and Down lines at Inverurie. The GNoSR was a particularly keen user of 4-4-0 locomotives for express passenger (and later branch line) duties, indeed all 100 of its tender locos were 4-4-0s. The three Class D43s (a variant of other similar classes) were delivered in 1890, and 6814 was always based at Kittybrewster, prior to its withdrawal in the 1930s. Although this is an undated photo the loco's LNER numbering indicates that it was taken some time after the 1923 Grouping - with the clothing on view perhaps suggesting the mid-1930s.
(26) Class D40 No. 62277 Gordon Highlander eases a short Down goods train into Keith Junction on 14 August 1953. The dust on the wagons suggests this may have been china clay traffic for a paper mill. This loco was the last of the D40 class when withdrawn from regular service at Kittybrewster shed in 1958. Thereafter it was restored to GNoSR livery and worked occasional excursion trains prior to being retired to the Glasgow Transport Museum in the mid1960s. Keith was a key goods marshalling location on the GNoSR as the junction with the 'Glen Line’ to Elgin via Dufftown and Craigellachie and the Highland Railway main line to Elgin via Mulben.
(27) Former Caledonian Railway 113 Class No.54473 stands at the head of an Aberdeen-bound train at one of Keith Junction’s two bay platforms in 1953. It was one of last express passenger locomotives to be built for the Caledonian, and the final examples in service were withdrawn by BR between 1959 and 1962. Immediately left of the train is the single platform for the Glen Line to Dufftown, while furthest right is the sole platform for express Aberdeen-ElginInverness services. As there was no crossing loop at the station, trains on that route had to cross further south – on double track until the 1970 singling of the main line to Aberdeen, and thereafter on a loop beside Keith Junction signal box – an unwieldy arrangement which still applies in 2021!’
(28) Class K2 2-6-0 locomotive No. 61741 is seen here on a southbound passenger service at Kittybrewster on 28 April 1958. Meanwhile ex-NBR Class D34 No. 62493 sits by the Down (to Inverness) platform. Designed by Nigel Gresley, then of the Great Northern Railway, the first K2s were introduced to service in 1914, and in the 1950s were typically to be found in the Aberdeen area and on the West Highland Line from Glasgow to Fort William - but all had been withdrawn by 1962. Today the scene at Kittybrewster is transformed. The passenger station closed in 1968, and all the buildings and platforms have disappeared, but the main line here is once again a double-track operation.
(29) Two unusual structures stand out at Pitmedden's wayside station in this undated shot thought to be from the 1950s. The 'gate box' controlled the level crossing provided mainly for the benefit of the local laird, and it was a unique structure on the GNoSR, with a hexagonal shape built in red brick on a granite base with yellow brick corner and window surrounds. The simple but attractive waiting shelter on the Down platform was matched by an equivalent on the Up side. When the box closed in 1973 (the station had shut in 1964), the crossing was converted to user-operated barriers. The building survived for 45 years, only to be destroyed by Network Rail in their works to re-double the track here.
(30) Driver and fireman attend to the running board on Class D41 No. 62241 in the yard at Keith engine shed, in an undated shot, post-nationalisation. Keith Junction signal box can just be glimpsed on the left. The D41 class was the most numerous GNoSR locomotive class to enter LNER ownership - 32 in total. They initially undertook the most important main-line passenger duties, allocated to Kittybrewster, Keith, and Elgin sheds. Later, D40s displaced them from some of these duties and post-war the introduction of large numbers of B1s led to the steady withdrawal of D41s, the last of which came out of service in 1953.
(31) No fewer than seven locomotives are on shed at Keith (south of the main line on the left) in this undated shot, but the period in which the photo was taken can be identified (just) by the 'British Railways' name on the tender of the third locomotive from the left and by the presence (far right) of Class D40 No. 62277 Gordon Highlander, which was withdrawn from regular service in 1958. The shed was closed for steam traction in 1961, but part of it was later incorporated in a rail-served bulk storage facility for the Chivas whisky business, opened in 1976.
The Alford branch
(32) Interested observers watch J36 No. 65213 being turned at the terminus of the 16-mile Alford branch on 12 August 1954. Steam traction was labourintensive, requiring large numbers of men to fuel, water, clean, maintain and operate the locos – and would be replaced by diesels north of Aberdeen between 1959 and 1962. The Alford branch was an early closure, losing its passenger trains in 1950, although freight services lingered on until 1966. This class of 0-6-0 locomotive, introduced in 1888 for freight work on the North British Railway, eventually numbered 168 in total, and in 1967 the two remaining were the last steam locomotives in service in Scotland. No. 65243 Maude was preserved by the Scottish Railway Preservation Society and is now based at the Bo'ness and Kinneil Railway.
The Buchan lines
(33) A heavy fish train for southern markets is hauled out of Fraserburgh in 1950 by Class B1 No. 61323 and an unidentified Class B12. Fish was a key traffic on the line after its opening by the GNoSR in 1865, and as late as 1962 – the best part of two years after diesels had arrived en masse in Aberdeen – it was still the practice for fish specials from Fraserburgh and Peterhead (and Royal trains to and from Ballater on the Deeside Line) to be worked by steam power. Passenger trains to Fraserburgh ceased in 1965, but the fish traffic survived until almost the end of freight services to the Buchan town in 1979, finally succumbing to competing road haulage. (34) Headed by Class D40 4-4-0 No. 62272, an Aberdeen-bound train prepares to leave the Peterhead terminus on 4 July 1951. The two-platform station had a short overall roof, also spanning a goods siding. Opened in 1862 as part of the Formartine & Buchan Railway (absorbed by the GNoSR in 1866), passenger services at Peterhead were withdrawn in 1965, having long suffered from a circuitous route to Aberdeen (via Maud Junction on the Fraserburgh line) compared to the more direct route by bus and car. Freight services survived only until 1970, just as the North Sea oil era was dawning.
(35) A man with a mission at Rathen station. With ex-GNoSR Class D41 4-4-0 No. 62229 at its head, the mid-day train from Fraserburgh to Aberdeen pauses at this lonely spot on 7th July 1950. Porters were in those days supplied with bikes to deliver small urgent parcels to local addresses, but by the time of the 1963 Beeching Report, the station (one and a half miles from the village of that name, whose population was only 500) had been de-staffed, and it would close completely in 1965 when all Fraserburgh passenger services were withdrawn. The last of the D41 locomotives was withdrawn by 1953.
(36) All three of Fraserburgh's platforms are occupied in this 20 May 1952 scene. On the right is a short train bound for St Combs, with Ivatt 'Mogul' Class 2-6-0 No. 46460 featuring the distinctive 'cowcatcher' fitted for working over the unfenced Light Railway. Opposite is Class D40 No.62276 on an even shorter train, presumably destined for Aberdeen, while the most westerly platform is occupied by freight vans. Designed by the LMS for mixed traffic, the relatively low-powered Moguls were introduced from 1946 and could be found across many parts of the British network, and no fewer than seven have survived into preservation, including two on the Strathspey Railway.
(37)The St Combs branch engine Class 2MT 2-6-0 No. 46460 shunts Fraserburgh goods yard on 20 May 1952. The yard had half a dozen long sidings for outdoor loading and unloading, a goods shed for smaller consignments, and a loading bank where one of the key traffics - fish - was loaded from lorries into insulated wagons conveying this valuable business to major markets such as London and Glasgow. 46460 would also haul freight in mixed trains over the final five miles to St Combs. She was built in Crewe in 1950 and withdrawn from service in 1966 - a short life curtailed by BR's rush to replace steam with diesel.
(38) Class B1 4-6-0 No. 61345 powers a Peterhead-Aberdeen passenger service away from Maud on 20 May 1952. The sheer extent of the physical work required of Maud Junction signalmen is illustrated by the broad block of 'point rodding' in the foreground. Maud was the second-largest intermediate settlement served by the Dyce-Fraserburgh/Peterhead railways, with a population of 1,374 in 1963, but its main railway importance was as the junction of the Peterhead and Fraserburgh lines and as a goods railhead for the surrounding agricultural district. No fewer than 410 B1s were introduced by the LNER and BR for medium mixed traffic work across Britain between 1942 and 1951. For a number of the GNoSR sheds, the B1s were the first main-line locomotives to be delivered new since Grouping in 1923.
(39) Framed by a distinctive GNoSR footbridge, Class D40 No. 62271 sits by the Peterhead-bound platform at Maud on 20 May 1952. The train 'consist' comprises only a guard's van and two passenger coaches - and 10 years later the low volume of business that this reflected made the Peterhead branch an obvious target for the Beeching Axe. By the time of the latter all passengers from Aberdeen to Peterhead had to change trains at Maud - a further inconvenience on top of the circuitous nature of the rail route. The two Peterhead platforms in the foreground here were complemented by a single platform for 'Up' and 'Down' Fraserburgh passenger trains, just visible between the locomotive and the station building.
(40) Uncertainty surrounds what exactly is happening in this shot of Class B12 No. 61524 shunting a mixed freight and passenger train on the bi-directional Fraserburgh platform road at Maud on 20 May 1952. Is he propelling back into the platform, or just moving off? However, there’s no mystery about the loco behind No. 61524 – it’s Class D40 No. 62276, sitting in the goods yard. Twenty seven years later, just before the demise of the by-then freight-only Fraserburgh branch, the only running line still extant was the one on which the B12-hauled train is seen here, but several of the goods sidings were still handling freight, principally pipes and seed potatoes.
(41) Class D40 No. 62276 Andrew Bain pokes her nose out of Fraserburgh's neat little engine shed on 20 May 1952. The distinctive skyline here is completed by Fraserburgh South Church of Scotland (left) and Dalrymple Hall (right). The turntable can just be seen to the left: an essential steam-age facility which became redundant with the arrival of diesels en masse in 1960-61, since the overwhelming majority had driving cabs at each end of the locomotive. Today the old shed - now part of a wholesale fish merchants - is virtually the only surviving physical evidence of the railway in this Buchan fishing town. Both Fraserburgh and Peterhead are further from the rail network than any other towns of their size in Britain
(42) Both driver and fireman are on the lookout for someone - perhaps the signalman - as Class D40 No. 62278 eases a short mixed train from Peterhead into Maud on 11 August 1954. Mixed passenger and freight trains operated for many years across the British railway system, largely confined to the more lightlyused branch lines where a separate freight train was either not justified by traffic levels or presented timetabling difficulties. Branch line closures and the introduction of diesel multiple units in the 1950s and 60s gradually brought about the end of mixed trains, although the practice survived until the 1980s on the Fort William-Mallaig line.
(43) Ex-Great Eastern Railway (GER) Class F4 2-4-2 tank engine No. 67164 – far from its former life working London suburban services from Liverpool Street station – sits at the head of a Fraserburgh train at the St Combs branch terminus on 20 May 1952. The F4s were introduced to the GER in 1884, designed for working branch and suburban passenger services. Known as ‘Gobblers’ due to their excessive fuel consumption, they were not a great success and many were withdrawn before the Grouping in 1923. Three F4s were moved to Scotland in the 1930s, and when working the Fraserburgh to St. Combs branch were fitted with cowcatchers. The last F4 was withdrawn from service in 1956.
Right: (44) A mixed passenger and freight train sits also at the St Combs terminus on 20 May 1952, headed by Class 2MT No. 46460. In the foreground is the loop which enabled locos to run round their trains; the branch was operated under the low-cost 'One Engine in Steam' method of control, whereby a physical token and signals at the junction permitted only one train to be operational on the branch at any one time. Diesel multiple units replaced steam in 1959 and the station was de-staffed the following year. Bottom: (45) Class 2MT 2-6-0 No. 46460 waits at St Combs on 20 May 1952, while a porter manoeuvres a barrow across the platform. Meanwhile a rake of goods vans stand in the single siding at the terminus of what would be Scotland's last Light Railway when it closed in 1965. Under the One Engine in Steam system the points were operated by the train guard rather than a signalman. When freight services were withdrawn in 1960, the only remaining trains were diesel multiple units (with driving cabs at each end), so the loop was no longer required and the branch was converted to an ultra-low-cost 'long siding' operation, with no loops, sidings, pointwork or signalling on the branch itself.
(46) Looking west towards Maud, Inverugie's neat little station is seen to good effect on 11 August 1954. Inverugie was only two miles from the Peterhead terminus and therefore a crossing loop was never required, but a goods siding and loading bank were provided, with a signal box to control access. The latter had a working life of just a few months in 1894 and was then replaced by a train crew-operated ground-frame, but the box was still in situ and evidently in good condition in 1954. An old goods wagon is serving as a shed in the station forecourt - and operational freight trains would continue to run through here for five years after the line's 1965 passenger closure.
(47) Class D40 No. 62273 gently intrudes on the rural tranquility of Inverugie on 11 August 1954, hauling a short train from Peterhead which, at Maud Junction, would join the portion from Fraserburgh to form a combined train to Aberdeen. At least one passenger is in evidence, but this was not a busy station, as the village of Inverugie (half a mile away) had a population of only around 200 people. After the Peterhead passenger service was proposed for withdrawal in the Beeching Report, just 11 people lodged official objections to closure. Note the enamel platform adverts for Virol - 'nursing mothers need it' - a sweet brown syrup which was a by-product of the brewing industry.
(48) Steam hisses gently from Class D40 No. 62278 Hatton Castle as it sits at the Peterhead-bound platform at Maud in an undated shot thought to have been taken in the mid-1950s. Note the signs for a First Class Waiting Room and a Dining Room (known locally as 'The Refresh'). As late as the 1963-1964 winter timetable, BR Scottish Region was advertising this facility as one of 11 'refreshment rooms' which were 'not operated by British Transport Catering Services'. The station building has survived and today houses Maud Railway Museum, sited on what is now the Formartine and Buchan Way, a longdistance footpath and cycle way running over the old railway solum from Dyce to Fraserburgh and Peterhead.
(49) Ex-LNER Class V4 2-6-2 No.61700 Bantam Cock sits outside Fraserburgh engine shed on 13 July 1955. To the rear can be seen the overall (but evidently unglazed) roof of the passenger station. Fraserburgh was a sub-shed of Aberdeen Kittybrewster, closing in 1961 after diesel locomotives took over almost all passenger and freight services between Fraserburgh and Aberdeen in 1960. Only two V4s were built (in 1941), with Bantam Cock so named to highlight the lightweight nature of the design. After working in the Leeds/York area and in East Anglia, on the West Highland Line and across Central Scotland, their final base – from 1953 – was in Aberdeen, prior to withdrawal from service in 1957.
The Macduff branch
(50) Ex-NBR D34 No. 62489 Glen Dessary shunts at Inveramsay on 13 August 1954, three years after the closure to passenger services of the station and the Macduff branch which joined the main line here. In this view looking north, the continuing branch freight trains (to Macduff until 1961, and to Turriff until 1966) used the track by the eastern face of the island platform. At 29¾ miles, the Macduff line was one of the longest of the GNoSR branches, but served only villages and small towns - it is therefore no surprise that it was one of the earliest passenger service withdrawals.
(51) Wartle's simple station seen on 13 August 1954, looking north. This was the first stop after Inveramsay, with just a single platform and signals to protect the level crossing. The station - opened in 1857 by the Banff, Macduff and Turriff Junction Railway (later part of the GNoSR) - served local farms and the nearby hamlet of Meikle Wartle. On passenger closure in 1951 there were some five trains daily in each direction. Wartle also had a small goods yard, which closed in 1964; the last passenger train here was the return working of an Aberdeen-Turriff excursion in 1965.
(52) On 13 August 1954, three years after passenger closure, there are a few signs of activity at Fyvie's modest station. Open goods wagons sit on the right and several barrows on the platform suggest that a parcels service may still have been in operation. The modern transit shed adjacent to one of the sidings would have been used to transfer agricultural supplies from rail to road. This 'Adcost' design was a fairly common feature of the railway landscape from the 1940s and 50s. Looking north, the short siding beyond the station was designed to catch any runaway wagons off the 1 in 80 gradient from Rothienorman. The transit shed is the sole railway survivor today.
(53) A southbound goods train waits in the Turriff loop for the road to Auchterless on 13 August 1954, headed by Class D34 No. 62493 Glen Gloy. The original terminus of the branch in 1857, Turriff had the largest intermediate station on the line through to Macduff which was opened in 1860. The station had two signal boxes, the one seen here being unusual in its position set back from the platform (and approached via a raised walkway), giving the signalman a view of the level crossing to the north. Both boxes closed in 1961, when freight services to Macduff were withdrawn and Turriff became the northern terminus of the line - until 1966, when the branch closed completely.
(54) King Edward was a classic GNoSR rural station, seen here looking north on 13 August 1954, with its single platform and small goods yard. The name evidently has no connection with any 'King Edward', but originates from Gaelic and may mean 'head of the valley'. The station, opened in 1860, served a nearby hamlet and local farms. A crossing loop and second platform were added at the turn of the century but these were taken out of use well before the 1961 line closure (thought to have been in 1936). These kinds of operational economies were an early sign of the impact of the bus and the car on railway finances.
(55) Banff Bridge was the last intermediate station on the Macduff branch, just a quarter of a mile short of the terminus. On the eastern bank of the River Deveron where it joins the Moray Firth, the station - seen here looking north on 13 August 1954 - was less than a mile by road from the town of Banff, on the western bank of the river. Banff Bridge was only ever a passenger station, opening in 1860 and closing in 1951, more than 12 years before the infamous Beeching cuts. The station building has survived as a private residence, with panoramic views to the north, west and south.
(56) Class D40 No. 62278 Hatton Castle - built by the North British Locomotive Company in Glasgow in 1920 - shunts goods wagons at the Macduff terminus in 1954. The passenger station was less than two miles from Banff station, which was served by a short branch off the Coast Line through Buckie to Elgin. Passenger services on this rural branch could therefore be withdrawn with little hardship to passengers from Macduff and nearby Banff Bridge - and this duly came to pass in 1951, the year which saw the largest number of route service withdrawals (18) in a single year in Scotland’s railway history.
Speyside
(57) At the head of a southbound passenger train on the Glen Line from Elgin to Keith via Dufftown, Class B1 No. 61348 traverses the River Spey and enters the crossing loop at Craigellachie on 29 May 1950. Opened as 'Strathspey Junction' in 1863 by the Great North of Scotland Railway, it was renamed Craigellachie station in 1864. The Speyside Railway opened through to Boat of Garten in 1866, and thereafter - until closure to passengers in 1965 Craigellachie served as a three-platform junction station for the two through lines. Sadly the imposing bridge over the Spey was removed after closure of the railway.
Top: (58) Thirty three and a quarter miles from Craigellachie, the Speyside Line terminated at its Boat of Garten junction with the Highland Railway's 'Highland Main Line'. In this 1951 scene, Class D40 No. 62269 awaits departure from Boat of Garten's island platform with a diminutive train. The railway served only villages and scattered settlements, other than the small towns of Grantown-on-Spey (which had two stations, the GNoSR's being a mile from the town centre) and Aberlour, just two miles before Craigellachie. Passenger traffic was always sparse, the line's main raison d'etre being the transport of raw materials to, and finished product from, the multiple whisky distilleries along this winding rail corridor. Bottom: (59) By 7 August 1966, Carron station on the Speyside Line had been closed to passengers for nearly a year, but there was still pride in the railway, with both platforms welltended and no signs of any vandalism. Carron had long been at the heart of the railway's freight business in whisky country, and the short branch line to Dailuaine distillery (with its own steam locomotive) joined the Speyside Line just to the east. The crossing loop at Carron remained operational to cater for any out-of-course running of the two daily freight trains which continued until complete closure of the line two years later. Opposite: (60) The driver of a Down goods train headed by D40 No. 62262 checks back on his train, having just pulled into one of the reception loops in Craigellachie yard on 19 May 1952, prior to commencing shunting. Until as late as the 1980s a typical British freight train had three train crew: the driver, the fireman ('Secondman' in diesel days) and guard whereas the competition from road haulage had long involved just a driver, albeit for a much smaller load than a typical train. The railway first started losing freight business to the roads in 1918 when surplus lorries and drivers returned to Britain from war on the Western Front.
(61) On 19 May 1952, D40 No. 62242 sits in the loading bank road at Craigellachie. Wagons for unloading at Craigellachie itself would be detached in the various sidings here - but traffic from the south to other Speyside destinations would largely be marshalled earlier at Keith Junction where trains from the Aberdeen area met local 'trip' workings. The Speyside Line had direct connection to the Highland / LMS Highland Main Line at Boat of Garten, but the normal preference would be to keep traffic for the south on GNoSR / LNER metals for as long as possible, via Aberdeen.
(62) A D40 and a D41 are seen side by side at Craigellachie on 19 May 1952. D40 No. 62271 is sitting on the turntable road south of the station, possibly waiting to be turned and watered after working an inbound Speyside service, before returning the train to Boat of Garten. To the rear is D41 No. 62242. The turntable fell out of use after Speyside passenger services switched from steam to diesel railbus in 1958. In recent years Craigellachie Village Council has erected an interpretation board nearby, along with indicator posts and signs showing locations of former railway sites such as the station building, signal box, water tower and turntable - with the latter's deep pit now revealed and made a focal point for visitor exploration of local railway heritage.
Left: (63) Class D40 No. 62274 Benachie sits at Craigellachie's Speyside platform on 20 May 1952, awaiting departure for Boat of Garten. This loco, built at the GNoSR's Inverurie Works in 1921, was based at Kittybrewster shed until its 1955 withdrawal. Of the 21 Class D40s passed by the GNoSR to the LNER at the Grouping, eight had names - and these were the only locos in the entire GNoSR fleet to be named, all other classes being numbered only. The names were: George Davidson, Benachie, Sir David Stewart, Andrew Bain, Gordon Highlander, Hatton Castle, Glen Grant and Southesk - a motley mix of company officers and geographical locations. Above: (64) A fine view of Boat of Garten station on 6 August 1953. Class D40 No. 62277 Gordon Highlander has arrived on a Speyside train from Craigellachie, and passengers wait on the island platform for a connecting service to Aviemore and the south. The original Highland Main Line from Forres through Grantown-on-Spey and Boat of Garten to Perth opened in 1863 but became a secondary route when the 'Direct Line' from Aviemore to Inverness via Slochd Summit opened in 1898. After withdrawal of both passenger services at Boat of Garten in 1965, the line to Aviemore was in due course revived as the heritage Strathspey Railway, incorporating the attractive main station building seen here.
(65) A Speyside train arrives at Craigellachie on 6 August 1953, hauled by Class D40 No. 62277 Gordon Highlander. In the mid-1950s there were only three passenger trains daily from Boat of Garten to Craigellachie, and after the switch from steam traction to diesel railbuses in 1958 two of these were extended through to Elgin, and all three from Boat of Garten to Aviemore - but it was not enough to save the service, which was axed in 1965. However Craigellachie West signal box - seen to the far left here, and just one of no fewer than three boxes at the station - survived until the end of through Speyside freight services in 1968.
(66) Once rivals, but by the time of this 1953 shot both locomotives were owned by the same company, British Railways. To the left, the driver of ex-GNoSR D40 No. 62269 is on the lookout for a signal, while a shunter works with ex-Caledonian Railway 0-4-4 tank No. 55174 and a coal wagon in the sidings just north of Aviemore station. Aviemore was no more than a hamlet prior to the arrival of the railway in 1863, but as the Direct Line was gradually extended north in the 1890s so it grew to be a village, with a new four-platform station (now A-listed) and a four-bay engine shed (B-listed). Confusingly, Aviemore is overlooked from the west by a hill called Craigellachie!
(67) There are few passengers in evidence as Class D40 No. 62267 sits at Aberlour on 10 August 1954 with an eastbound Speyside service. The station was host to a 'camping coach' from 1954 to 1955: these were old passenger vehicles no longer suitable for use in trains, which were converted to provide basic sleeping and living space at static locations in rural or coastal areas – and there were over 30 such coaches sited in Scotland in the late 1950s. In 1968 Speyside freight trains west of Aberlour were withdrawn but the railway continued to bring coal to the village until 1971.
(68) Knockando station, looking east on 22 June 1957. The station did not open until 1899, 36 years after the line began service. To the west (behind the camera) was the private siding serving Tamdhu distillery, one of many such direct connections to the railway between Craigellachie and Boat of Garten. The Speyside Line was single-track throughout, with just four crossing loops over its 33¼ mile length, three of them (including Knockando) in the more heavily freight-trafficked 12-mile section from Craigellachie to Ballindalloch. The railway closed completely in 1968 but Knockando station subsequently became a visitor centre for the distillery, with the main building and the signal box both now C-listed.
(69) A delightful rural railway scene captured at Aberlour on 22 June 1957 - with a well-tended station garden, prominent 'running-in board' (with the station name), a classic GNoSR footbridge, waiting shelter and signal box. The platforms are spotless and not a weed shows through the two tracks - but this was a sight which could not survive the Beeching Axe, succumbing to passenger closure in 1965. The station site is now home to the Speyside Way Visitor Centre and the main building (behind the footbridge, on the right) is a teashop.
(70) A tranquil scene at Craigellachie captured on 8 August 1966, seen from the south. The 'running in' board proclaims not just the station's name, but also 'change for Strathspey' and '270 feet above sea level'. Below it is a station bench with bespoke 'Craigellachie' sign on the back-rest. To the right are the two platforms serving the Glen Line from Keith and Dufftown to Elgin, while to the left are the Speyside platform and the station goods shed. By this time only freight trains were running to the left, but nearly two years would elapse before the remaining passenger services were withdrawn, one of the last cuts in Scotland stemming from the 1963 Beeching Report.
(71) No architectural awards for this strange mix of traditional (an old railway coach) and modern design at Towiemore Halt as seen on 9 August 1966, two years before closure. The Keith and Dufftown Railway opened through Towiemore as early as 1862, but it was not until 1937 that a public railway station opened here, serving the nearby hamlet of that name and its distillery (in the background). The suffix 'halt' was added to its name in 1938. After Dufftown became the terminus of the by-then freight-only line in 1971, freight and passenger charter trains continued to pass through here until 1985. Thereafter, the Keith & Dufftown Railway re-opened as a heritage operation in 2001, and Towiemore is now - once again - a request halt.
The Coast Line to Banff and Elgin
(72) There was little room to carve out a railway terminus at Banff, but the Banff, Portsoy and Strathisla Railway Company managed to create a neat little operation, initially - in 1859 - as a temporary terminus, replaced the following year by a permanent station. The GNoSR took over the line in 1867, with a single platform and a goods line through to the quayside at Banff harbour, but this was cut back prior to 1900 when a second platform line was constructed. The latter can be seen (centre) here on 14 July 1950, with Class D41 No. 62251 shunting a short rake of goods wagons under the overall roof of the passenger station.
(73) The railway engineers managed to squeeze in a diminutive goods yard immediately west of Banff passenger station, doubtless requiring many complex shunting movements. Here Class D40 No. 62270 shunts the yard on 17 May 1952, flanked by a water tower - with the signal box and hand-operated yard crane visible in the background. It seems remarkable that this modest scale of freight activity allowed freight traffic to continue (with diesel haulage) for four years after the 1964 passenger closure - not least because prior to that the cost of moving freight along the branch was shared, in steam-hauled mixed trains.
(74) Not much custom in sight on 19 May 1952 as Class D40 No. 62267 sits at the head of a train which has just travelled the 4½ miles from Elgin to the seaside terminus at Lossiemouth. The station was opened in 1852 by the Morayshire Railway and absorbed by the GNoSR in 1880. This railway backwater hosted - in the summer timetable from 1923 to 1939 - a through sleeping car from London (King's Cross), at 610 miles the longest through working on the British railway system at the time. Since complete closure of the branch in 1964, all traces of the railway here have disappeared - apart from the platform.
(75) Above: By 11 August 1956, Tillynaught station had lost its platform canopies - but as a result the unusually ornate architecture of the station building was fully revealed. Railway staff are unloading three large trunks from the branch train, while its passengers stand on the island platform awaiting the connecting train from Elgin and Buckie to Cairnie Junction and Aberdeen. Due to the difficulty of arranging 'adequate' replacement buses, the Coast Line passenger service closure in 1968 was one of the very last Beeching cuts to be implemented in Scotland. The line's last two trains - to Aberdeen and from Aberdeen - crossed here on the evening of 4 May that year. (76) Opposite: The tricky geography of the Banff terminus is well illustrated by this view looking west on 11 August 1956, taken from the escarpment which overshadowed the final stretch of the railway from Tillynaught. Domestic coal wagons await discharge, while a livestock lorry is transferring sheep from road to rail in the goods yard. The dark innards of the single-road engine shed (a sub-shed of Keith) are also seen to good effect. The steep escarpment obliged the railway to burrow behind the long row of terraced cottages in the distance - doubtless unpopular with the residents, but more readily achieved by railway companies in these pre-planning days - particularly when 'near neighbours' lacked financial or political muscle.
(77) Train crew in conversation at Banff in an undated shot - but one which must have been post-1954, as it features Class 2MT 2-6-0 No. 78045 which was based in the area from 1955 until 1964 closure. These locomotives were designed for light passenger work and were the smallest engines in the BR range of standard types. Tillynaught to Banff proved to be a last - isolated - outpost of steam working on the former GNoSR network, BR having concluded that although steam was expensive to operate, it was cheaper than the alternative of using a Type 2 diesel for the branch's mixed trains or converting a Type 1 diesel to incorporate steam heating equipment for passenger comfort.
(78) The intricate design of Tillynaught station building - post-platform canopy removal - can be well appreciated in this shot taken from the footbridge to the south on 6 August 1958. Does the presence of two stored trestles indicate that re-painting work was in progress (probably its last such treatment before closure)? And, more profoundly, could any local railway staff conceivably have predicted that only 10 years later all rail traffic here would cease? In the foreground, Class N15 No. 69224 sits in the Up loop with a short mixed freight, while the branch passenger train can just be glimpsed by the outer face of the island platform.
(79) Class D34 No. 62469 Glen Douglas sits at the head of an Aberdeen-bound train at Elgin East's Platform 2. This shot is undated but must be prior to November 1959 when the loco was withdrawn from normal service and restored to NBR livery for working special trains until being placed in Glasgow Museum of Transport in 1962. Two further bay platforms are hidden behind the train; the four platforms of Elgin East handled trains to Lossiemouth, to Aberdeen via the Coast Line, and to Aberdeen via the Glen line. To the right is the busy goods yard - which still sees occasional freight trains today.
(80) A stark late steam-era scene is captured at Elgin engine shed on 14 June 1960. Among the three locos on view (left) is Class D40 No. 62277 Gordon Highlander which had been withdrawn from normal service two years earlier and was now sporting GNoSR livery and its original 'No. 49' for its new role as a haulier of special excursion trains. The shed was at the east end of the Elgin East goods yard, and lost its original role with the end of steam in the area in 1961, but continued operationally as a diesel stabling point until the local line closures in 1968 - and survives to this day as a C-listed structure (but no longer in railway use).
(81) Plenty of activity at Elgin East station on 14 June 1960. Class 2P No. 40663 sits ‘light engine’ in one of the loops while Black Five No. 45476 stands at the head of a train at Platform 1. The latter was a through platform linking the former GNoSR East station with the former Highland Railway's West station, giving the combined BR station a total of six platforms. The imposing GNoSR station building - opened in 1898, and closed to passengers in 1968 - was built in the 'Scottish Baronial' style, and has been beautifully conserved as a B-listed structure, including the superb original booking hall (now part of a private business centre).
Steam Memories NE Scotland
£ 12.50 ISBN 978-1-913893-03-3
Compiled by David Spaven
The distinctive character of the former Great North of Scotland Railway is well illustrated by this selection of photos from the Neville Stead collection. Largely featuring the period from the 1940s to the mid-1960s – when the Beeching Axe decimated the North East Scotland rail network – the album captures the atmosphere of a wide variety of railways across the region. From the city of Aberdeen and the main line to Keith, through cross-country corridors in Speyside and via the coast to Elgin, to branches to Alford, Ballater, Banff, Fraserburgh, Lossiemouth, Macduff, Peterhead and St Combs, the world of the traditional steam railway is delightfully portrayed.
Steam Memories North East Scotland
Images from the Neville Stead collection Compiled by David Spaven