IT’S the best part of a century since passenger trains ran into the Aberdeenshire village of Oldmeldrum, and perhaps it’s not so hard to understand why the service didn’t survive longer.
The five-mile branch line from Inverurie on the Aberdeen to Inverness main line was seen as a way of revitalising the fortunes of what had once been a thriving market town before Inverurie’s canal link to Aberdeen gave it a trading advantage.
When the Great North of Scotland Railway opened its main line from to Huntly in 1854, small towns across the north-east realised that a link to the railway would be essential for future prosperity.
The Inverury and Old Meldrum Junction Railway was authorised in 1855, opened in 1856, leased to the GNoSR in 1858 and merged with the larger company in 1866. But it was never financially lucrative, even by the turn of the century when it was recording more than 50,000 passenger journeys a year and hundreds of wagons of goods and livestock.
At Oldmeldrum, the station was at Strathmeldrum, some five minutes’ walk downhill from the main square, originally surrounded by fields and comprising a granite station house, engine shed, carriage shed, a range of goods sheds and the usual loading bay.
There was originally a turntable, although it was removed in the 1880s, and the original station building was replaced by a wooden structure in the early 1890s designed to the standard format favoured for other GNoSR stations.
But after the First World War road services became an important competitor for the line, with passenger buses and later goods lorries stealing away much of its traffic, and services reduced to a couple of trains each way daily.
By the time the London and North Eastern Railway had absorbed all the GNoSR lines in 1923, the line was already losing money. It closed to passengers from November 2, 1931 but would remain open to goods until 1966.
Locals may have mourned the loss of “Meldrum Meg”, as the branch line tank engine had been nicknamed by local poet Dufton Scott, but although the poet lamented that “we’ll never see anither like the Meldrum Train” no one was truly surprised by the closure.
By the 1970s the station buildings were still in good condition, restored by a company supplying agricultural equipment and repainted in blue and white. The loading bay and main platform were still evident too.
But volunteers from the Royal Deeside Railway, a local heritage line, had designs on the building for their platform at Milton of Crathes station, where it would be rebuilt and restored as their headquarters.
Outside Oldmeldrum, no traces remain of the short wooden platform and simple wooden shelter which was Fingask Platform, opened in June 1866 and renamed Fingask Halt in 1924. It had no goods facilities and closed completely in 1931 when passenger services were withdrawn from the line.
The next stop along was at Lethenty, opened with the line in 1856, where the single-track platform remained perched over a river after the station buildings were demolished, along with a single siding serving the local meal mill. The station remained open to freight until 1961 and the whole line shut completely in 1966, more than a century after it opened.
INVERURY & OLD MELDRUM JUNCTION RAILWAY
Authorised: 15/6/1855
Leased to the GNoSR: 14/6/1858
Merged with the GNoSR: 1/8/1866
Opened:
Inverurie-Old Meldrum: 26/6/1856 (official) 1/7/1856 (regular services)
Closed:
Inverurie-Oldmeldrum
2/11/31 (passengers)
3/1/66 (goods/completely)
Stations
LETHENTY (P 2/11/31 G/CC 6/2/61)
FINGASK PLATFORM (P/CC 2/11/31) [no goods, also known as Fingask Halt]
OLDMELDRUM (P 2/11/31 G/CC 3/1/66) [Originally spelt Old Meldrum]
Station openings
Lethenty and Old Meldrum were opened on 26/6/1856. Fingask opened in 1866.
Closures:
The line closed to passengers in 1931, when Fingask closed completely. Lethenty remained open to goods until 1961. Oldmeldrum was open to goods until 1966 when the line closed completely.
