THE railwaymania that engulfed the country in the 1840s meant that there was no shortage of ideas about different ways in which the Aberdeenshire market town of Alford could be added to the railway map.
One proposal would have seen the Deeside Railway extended from its Banchory terminus north through Lumphanan and Cushnie to Alford. Another would have left the Deeside line at Colford before heading up through Echt, Waterton and Tillyfourie.
Other options included leaving the GNoSR main line between Aberdeen and Huntly, and heading west. One plan involved a junction with the main line at Buchanstone, but that would mean a 700-yard tunnel through the Bryndie Hill and very severe gradients.
ON THE MAP: the Alford Valley line GRAPHIC: Alan Young
An easier route without a tunnel and with gentler gradients could be made by going from Kintore through Tillyfourie, and this was the line for which parliamentary sanction was sought and granted, the GNoSR line offering the prospect of greater flexibility with connecting journeys for both passengers and goods than the Deeside route.
The Alford Valley Railway was duly authorised in 1856, opened on March 21, 1859 and merged with the GNoSR in 1866.
Kintore had opened in 1854 with the main line from Kittybrewster to Huntly, but now became a three-platform station, with a bay platform on the west side at the north end for the Alford branch.
Here there was a goods yard, signalbox and turntable for the branch line locomotive and a short sawmill siding between the main line and the branch. Originally the station boasted only a passing loop, but the main line from Dyce was doubled in 1880 and on to Inveramsay in 1882.
UP THE JUNCTION: Kintore station in 1975 PICTURE: Alan Young
Kintore closed to passengers in 1964 and goods in 1966, the same year that saw the Alford branch close to goods. The main line was singled in 1969, the platforms remaining disused. But the line was redoubled again to Inverurie in 2020 and a new station opened on the site of the Alford branch junction.
When the branch opened, four passenger trains ran daily in each direction, called at Kemnay, Monymusk and Whitehouse. An additional station was opened at Tillyfourie in 1860.
But with trains running through such agricultural terrain to a small town with only about 1,200 inhabitants, no one was under any illusions about the potential profitability of passenger services on the line.
Nonetheless, the granite industry around Kemnay provided good business for the railway, in the same way that other north-east lines relied on fast fish trains to London or busy cattle markets to bolster modest passenger trade.
Kemnay station itself may be nothing more than a memory, buried beneath a housing development, but its quarries were to become famous, the railway enabling stone to be transported all over the country for bridges, buildings and monuments, from the Liver Building in Liverpool to Marischal College in Aberdeen and the Thames Embankment in London.
LONG GONE: the site of Kemnay station PICTURE: Alan Young
The new station completed here in 1901 on land set aside by the local laird was quite a substantial edifice in its prime, complete with passing loop and still in good condition years after closure.
Local 28-year-old entrepreneur John Fyfe had taken a lease of the Paradise Hill quarry in 1858 while the railway was still being built and would turn it into a flourishing business that 30 years later would be employing 250 men.
Other quarries sprang up along the line too, though Paradise Hill remained the biggest and most famous, a siding there still being served by the daily freight train that ran for years after the branch closed to passengers in January 1950.
By contrast, the next station along the route was the sleepy little single-platform station at Monymusk, eight miles from the main line and buried away in a thick wood some three-quarters of a mile from the village.
WOODED SPOT: Monymusk in 1978 PICTURE: Alan Young
Taking a trip on a freight train along the line in 1959 to celebrate the centenary of its opening, J Spencer Giles wrote of the evocative scent of gorse, heather and wood shavings emanating from the timber yard at the eastern end of the station.
From there the branch climbed through rugged moorland towards Tillyfourie and on towards the summit at the 24½ milepost from Aberdeen, passing into a deep mile-long cutting blasted through particularly hard granite before the views opened up towards Alford.
Originally a single-platform station, Tillyfourie’s passing loop and eastbound platform were added later. The brick-built station building closed to passengers in 1950 but survived after closure to become a private dwelling.
PRIVATE DWELLING: Tillyfourie PICTURE: Alan Young
The small goods yard shut in 1952, but there were sidings serving quarries on both sides of the station, including Corrennie quarry which produced distinctive salmon-pink granite favoured for decorative use and gracing buildings such as Glasgow City Chambers.
Next stop, Whitehouse, a single-platform station with a goods yard on the north side of the line which remained open long after the station shut to passengers in 1950. Although Spencer Giles wrote in 1960 that the extensive sidings filled with empty vans looked largely disused, goods services continued until the line closed completely in 1966.
At Alford, the modest single-platform terminus was never exactly a bustling transport hub and rising operating costs coupled with a decline in local traffic after the end of the Second World War resulted in the closure of the branch to passengers on January 2, 1950.
MODEST TERMINUS: Alford in June 1962 PICTURE: Carl Marsden
Goods trains continued to run until November 7, 1966, when the line was completely closed, but Spencer Giles’ portrait for Railway Magazine of the daily freight train in 1960 is a flashback to a much quieter era.
By that stage the branch is single track throughout and the freight train makes just one round trip each day, a little J36 0-6-0 tank engine from Kittybrewster trundling around with a selection of wagons, cattle trusks and brake vans like a Hornby Dublo train set.
After swapping wagons at some of the quarry lines and dropping parcels at Kemnay, there’s some serious shunting to do in the yard at Alford, where it’s market day. At this stage, the signalling system is still intact and the station boasts an engine shed, carriage shed, water column, signalbox and extensive sidings serving various cattle docks.
CHANGE OF GAUGE: Alford in 1978 PICTURE: Alan Young
Flash forward to the late 1970s and there’s still a lot of the infrastructure remaining, including the old brown and cream station buildings, albeit in poor condition.
It looks like the perfect spot for a heritage railway and by the end of the decade local railway enthusiast James Gordon managed to open a 2ft narrow-gauge railway running for about a mile to Haughton Country Park.
RECONSTRUCTED: Alford station in 2009 PICTURE: Alan Young
The railway used track, wagons and a locomotive dating from the 1930s rescued from an industrial peat-cutting operation at New Pitsligo and officially opened in 1980, later expanding to use the reconstructed station buildings of the original terminus.
More steam and diesel engines were purchased over the years along with passenger carriages, but concerns about the condition of the track and rolling stock led to the closure of the railway in 2017.
END OF THE LINE: Alford in 2009 PICTURE: Alan Young
It reopened six years later as the Alford Valley Community Railway, running weekend round trips to the country park from March to September and handily located for the nearby Grampain Transport Museum and Alford Heritage Museum.
With the station buildings smartly repainted in blue and white, the new railway’s mission has been to restore the track, engine shed and small single-platform station at Haughton Park.
BACK IN BUSINESS: Alford station in 2023 PICTURE: AVCR
It’s a welcome renaissance. It may be a different gauge, but more than 75 years after the original passenger service closed, visitors can once more board a train at Alford station – and long may that continue.
ALFORD VALLEY RAILWAY
Authorised, under agreement with the GNoSR: 23/6/1856 Merged with GNoSR: 1/8/1866
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.
REVIVAL BID: the Oldmeldrum branch MAP: Alan Young
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.
SURVIVOR: Oldmeldrum station in 1978 PICTURE: Alan Young
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.
END OF THE LINE: Oldmeldrum closed in 1966 PICTURE: Alan Young
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.
NO TRACE: the site of Fingask PICTURE: Alan Young
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.
PERCHED: Lethenty station PICTURE: Alan Young
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
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.
PERHAPS it should come as no surprise that so few remnants can be found of the old branch line to Macduff.
Meandering for almost 30 miles through rural Aberdeenshire towards the coast, it was dogged by financial challenges from its inception and the fishing and farming traffic its promoters dreamed of never materialised.
Indeed the branch closed to passengers in October 1951, many years before Richard Beeching’s controversial restructuring of the railways saw the mass closure of other Scottish branch lines in the 1960s.
HILLSIDE: the terminus at Macduff in 1978 PICTURE: Alan Young
Perched on the hillside high above the harbour the compact terminus at Macduff, once it finally opened in 1872, was never ideally located to capture the town’s fish traffic, especially since the line to Banff Harbour had opened in 1859.
Getting the last section of track completed was a challenge in itself, the original terminus at Banff & Macduff having been opened in 1860 almost a mile from the town. That station closed completely in 1872 when the extension opened, to be replaced by a passenger-only station at Banff Bridge overlooking the estuary where the River Deveron meets the sea.
ESTUARY VIEW: Banff Bridge PICTURE: Alan Young
The branch was born as the Banff, Macduff and Turriff Junction Railway, which wasauthorised in 1855 to connect Turriff to the GNoSR main line at Inveramsay, with a separate company, the Banff, Macduff and Turriff Extension Railway, building the extension through to Macduff.
The line opened to Turriff in September 1857 and on to the original Macduff station in 1860, though the final extension was not opened for another 12 years.
MEANDERING: the Macduff route MAP: Alan Young
South of Banff Bridge there were only two stations en route to Turriff, King Edward and Plaidy, both serving rural farming communities.
At King Edward the main station buildings stood on the northern side of what was originally a single track line, but a passing loop and second platform were added in 1895.
The station had a pedestrian overbridge and a wooden shelter on the southern platform. The goods yard to the south boasted two sidings and a loading dock which remained in use for a decade after the station closed to passengers.
RURAL SPOT: King Edward in 1978 PICTURE: Alan Young
By contrast Plaidy was on a single-track section of line with no crossing loop or signalbox, serving a handful of local farms and with a simple shelter on the west side of the single platform.
It did have a goods yard with a couple of sidings, loading platforms and a weighing machine, but both the station and goods yard were closed by the LNER in 1944, making it the first on the line to shut.
EARLY CASUALTY: Plaidy station shut in 1944 PICTURE: Alan Young
The town of Turriff was a veritable metropolis by comparison, the largest intermediate station on the branch and the original terminus, boasting a large goods shed, cattle pens and goods yard to the south and a locomotive shed and water tower to the north, originally complete with turntable until around 1900.
With two platforms and a passing loop, Turriff had substantial station buildings standing on either side with large platform canopies, and was flanked by a pair of signal boxes.
The line opened this far in 1857, was renamed the Aberdeen & Turriff Railway in 1859 and merged with the GNoSR in 1866.
ORIGINAL TERMINUS: the remains of Turriff in 1978 PICTURE: Alan Young
But with only three trains each way daily, receipts were disappointing and only just covered operating expenses. Although these had increased to five a day by the 1930s, when Sunday excursion trains even ran from Aberdeen, coal shortages in 1951 forced British Railways to introduce sweeping cuts to train services and the Macduff branch was an obvious target.
With its corn mill, saw mill and auction mart, Turriff remained open to goods until 1966, though all services north to Macduff stopped in 1961.
Later re-alignment of the road resulted in the demolition of the station, although a section of the platforms survives to the south, the goods yard becoming a caravan park.
Heading south, the railway climbed towards Rothienorman, partly by means of a long 1 in 80 gradient. First stop, Auchterless, 14 miles from the junction at Inveramsay and serving a largely rural area, along with the Towie Barclay estate and Kirkton of Auchterless.
OVERGROWN: Auchterless PICTURE: Alan Young
The station originally had two stone-built platforms with a small wooden shelter on one side and a brick ticket office and waiting room on the northbound platform.
By the time passenger services stopped in 1951 the passing loop, second platform and footbridge had already been removed to reduce maintenance costs but the goods yard had three sidings, a shed, loading dock, crane and weighing machine and remained in use until August 1964.
Although heavily overgrown 14 years later when Alan Young pictured the remains, the red brick station buildings were later restored as a private dwelling.
A few miles further south, the layout at Fyvie was very similar. Although lying a mile from the village, it also served Fyvie Castle, where the King and Queen of Spain had stayed in 1906 as guests of Lord Leith.
ROYAL VISIT: Fyvie station PICTURE: Alan Young
Back then the station had a signalbox, two stone-built platforms with a small wooden shelter on one side and a brick ticket office and waiting room on the southbound platform. But the passing loop and second platform were closed in 1936 to save on maintenance costs and later removed.
A short siding to the north on the eastern side of the single track line was intended for use in catching any runaway wagons escaping on the 1 in 80 gradient down from Rothienorman, while the goods yard contained the usual weighing machine, goods shed, loading dock and sidings.
Rothienorman itself was the summit of the line at almost 400 feet above sea level.
But while the station was once typical of others on the line, with two platforms connected by a pedestrian overbridge, a passing loop and a small wooden shelter on the up platform, it was demolished after closure and now houses a primary school car park.
SUMMIT: Rothienorman PICTURE: Alan Young
Closed to passengers in 1951 with other stations on the line, the sidings and goods yard remained in use until January 3, 1966, when the line closed to goods.
The last intermediate station on the line at Wartle was less substantial, with a single platform housing the brick station house and a goods yard with loading dock and sidings.
Good services were withdrawn in August 1964, along with those at Auchterless, but the station remains in use as a private dwelling.
SUMMIT: Wartle PICTURE: Alan Young
Just over three miles more and the line reached Inveramsay, a modest exchange junction in a sparsely populated rural area on the main line from Aberdeen to Inverness.
The station had two platforms on the main line, one serving as an island with the main station building and one of its two platform being used for the branch, with a passing loop.
Sidings stood to the east and there was originally a turntable, engine shed and loading bay too.
The station closed to passengers in 1951 with the branch line but goods services ran until November 1964. The main line was singled in 1969, but Aberdeen-Inverness trains still run past the platforms.
Modest it might have been, but Inveramsay has an unusual legacy, as the Scottish journalist and broadcaster Kenneth Roy explained in 2001 after taking a pilgrimage to the abandoned station, reduced to a tangle of weeds and broken wood:
LASTING LEGACY: Inveramsay station PICTURE: Alan Young
“Something remarkable once happened at this exposed and overlooked spot, and to understand what it was, I have to take you back 80 years to a very different world,” he wrote. “In the 1920s, you could take a slow meandering train from Inveramsay to the town of Macduff, 29 and three-quarter miles distant. . .
“If you were lucky, or unlucky, depending on your point of view, you would buy your ticket at Inveramsay from a singular young man known as the railway clerk before being waved off in the general direction of Wartle. And if you were very lucky, or very unlucky, depending on your point of view, the train would be badly delayed and the railway clerk would usher you into a roughly assembled shack known locally as Utopia.”
Utopia, he explained, comprised two spartan rooms with one half partitioned off for sleeping.
“In the other half, there were two chairs, a table, a paraffin lamp, a paraffin stove, and scores of books gathered into shelves to form an informal library or study.
“While passengers waited for trains, they became subject to inquiry; and the more important or self-important they were, the more challenging that inquiry tended to be. The local minister, poor fellow, was once asked to explain the difference between the first three Gospels on the one hand and St John’s Gospel on the other; what Luke meant by The Kingdom; and what proof he had that Matthew the publican and Matthew the evangelist were one and the same person.
“The provost of Inverurie was asked how many tons of coal Britain exported every year. A Church of Scotland missionary became involved in a long debate about India. The ideas of people like Wells and Shaw, Bertrand Russell and John Stuart Mill, were discussed, dissected and disputed. Scripture was extensively quoted and examined. All this, when all the travelling public had paid for was a cheap day return to Macduff.”
Roy would go on to create a charitywhich aimed to recapture the spirit of Inveramsay and those long idealistic debates of the 1920s, helping young people to stretch their minds, broaden horizons and build confidence.
He wrote: “Inveramsay, then, was a curious phenomenon; and perhaps a product of its age. It was a world in slow transition from religious certainties to political idealism; a world that had just endured the unimaginable losses of the First World War; a world in which questions had to be urgently asked, and just as urgently answered.
“All the same, we are entitled to wonder what happened to that spirit of independent inquiry, that burrowing into everything, that outburst of thought and questioning, that longing of the young people of Aberdeenshire to make sense of their experiences, that desire for something to give direction and meaning to their lives.”
Branch lines matter, Roy concluded – grassed over and abandoned, perhaps, but still alive in our imaginations offering gentle and meandering journeys of unorthodox thought and feeling.
Who would have thought that a flimsy shack on a remote platform in rural Aberdeenshire would still be remembered a century later, along with the young railway clerk and his friends who would debate there long into the night?
The spirit of Inveramsay is alive and well, it seems, for anyone bold or inquisitive enough to seek it out.
Thanks as always to Alan Young for permission to use his photographs chronicling stations along the route in August 1978. BANFF, MACDUFF & TURRIFF JUNCTION RAILWAY
Authorised: 15/6/1855 (Inveramsay – Turriff) Renamed Aberdeen and Turriff Railway 4/1859 Merged with the GNoSR: 1/8/1866
BANFF, MACDUFF & TURRIFF EXTENSION RAILWAY
Authorised: 27/7/1857 (Turriff-Macduff) Merged with the GNoSR: 1/8/1866 Macduff extension authorised: 21/7/1863 Revised plans authorised: 30/7/1866
Closed: Inveramsay-Macduff P 1/10/51 Turriff-Macduff G/CC 1/8/61 Inveramsay-Turriff G/CC 3/1/66
Stations WARTLE (P 1/10/51 G/CC 10/8/64) ROTHIENORMAN (P 1/10/51 G/CC 3/1/66) [Originally Rothie Norman RN Rothie-Norman 1/3/1870, RN Rothienorman c1956] FYVIE (P 1/10/51 G/CC 3/1/66) AUCHTERLESS (P 1/10/51 G/CC 10/8/64) TURRIFF (P 1/10/51 G/CC 3/1/66) PLAIDY (P/G/CC 22/5/44) KING EDWARD (P 1/10/51 G/CC 1/8/61) BANFF AND MACDUFF (P/G/CC 1/7/1872) [Closed and demolished on extension to Macduff and replaced with a new station at Banff Bridge] BANFF BRIDGE (P/CC 1/10/51) no goods MACDUFF (P 1/10/51 G/CC 1/8/61)
Closures Banff and Macduff closed completely in 1872 with the extension of the line to Macduff and was replaced with a passenger-only station at Banff Bridge.
Plaidy closed completely in 1944. The remaining stations closed to passengers in 1951.
King Edward and Macduff closed completely in 1961 when the goods service from Turriff to Macduff was axed. Wartle and Auchterless closed completely in 1964 and Rothienorman, Fyvie and Turriff closed in 1966 when goods services were withdrawn from the branch.
IMAGINE a railway line with stations so rural you can hear only birdsong and the bleating of sheep when you stand on the platform.
Imagine a route with spectacular views over clifftops and picturesque fishing villages, with the shimmering North Sea stretching off to the distant horizon.
For 80-odd years, such experiences were a reality for passengers on the Moray Coast line of the Great North of Scotland Railway, offering a glorious coastal detour away from the Aberdeen to Inverness main line between Huntly and Elgin.
SEA VIEWS: the beach at Cullen
Steam trains would leave the main line at Cairnie Junction on the Aberdeenshire-Banffshire border and head north on the Banff, Portsoy and Strathisla Railway route that had opened to Banff Harbour on July 30, 1859, with a short branch to Portsoy.
Retracing the route on foot as a teenager in August 1975, seven years after the line closed completely, there were still plenty of traces of the past for the sharp-eyed to spot.
And three years later when fellow enthusiast Alan Young toured the line chronicling what remained of its stations, their remote rural locations had ensured that many of them remained remarkably untouched by vandals, though many of the wooden structures were slowly succumbing to the ravages of the weather.
INTACT: Cornhill station in 1978 PICTURE: Alan Young
Turning north towards the coast, the line ran through Knock and Glenbarry towards Cornhill and Tillynaught, surely one of the quietest and most remote junction stations in the country.
At Cornhill, the brown and white wooden station buildings on the single platform remained intact and in fair condition, on my visit being still used for storage by Aberdeen and Northern Marts. The loading bay was still in use by the same firm.
From here in the 1970s it was more or less possible to follow the trackbed all the way round the coast to Spey Bay, although the route became increasingly overgrown and difficult to traverse as the years passed and key bridges were demolished.
At Cornhill, Bridge 883 had gone, having once carried the railway over the B9022, but the next two remained, carrying the rails over field access paths for farm vehicles. At the site of an old level crossing, the red “stop, look, listen” sign remained intact.
LONELY: the junction station at Tillynaught PICTURE: Alan Young
Moving on towards lonely Tillynaught, the line passed over a small stream on Bridge 886. At 887, where a farm track crossed the rails, an old GNoSR trespass sign was still on site, dated Aberdeen 1/10/09. As the single line widened out at the approach to Tillynaught, Bridge 888 once carried the now divided lines over a farm track.
Here the disused station master’s house and another private dwelling remained, but in poor condition. The station buildings had gone, though, and the Banff branch platform was heavily overgrown.
From here the original line headed north on a short spur to Portsoy, recalling the days when the Banff branch was the original main line. The remaining bridges crossed farm tracks and small streams but to the north of 891 was the site of a signalbox, and to the north of 892 was milepost 60¼, proclaiming the distance from the old Waterloo Goods station at Aberdeen which was the original terminus for the GNoSR.
GOODS YARD: the original line ended at Portsoy PICTURE: Alan Young
At Portsoy, the original terminus dated from 1859 and was retained as a goods station when the Moray Coast line opened a quarter of a century later.
Authorised in 1882, the line opened in 1884 from Portsoy to Tochineal and from Lossie Junction at Elgin to Garmouth. But it was another two years before the main central section from Tochineal to Garmouth opened for traffic.
The new double-track passenger station at Portsoy opened on April 1, 1884 and the main station buildings remained on one of the curving platforms when I visited in 1975, the windows and doors all boarded up.
BOARDED UP: the 1884 station at Portsoy PICTURE: Alan Young
Once the coast line opened the first station closed to passengers. There was a carriage shed too, with a notice on the loading bay still proudly proclaiming: “Engines and bogie carriages must not be run into the carriage shed.”
On the secondary platform the buildings had been demolished, but milepost 61 remained, along with a couple of Railway Executive anti-trespassing notices. Track was lifted from a short spur to Portsoy Harbour back in Spring, 1910.
HUGGING THE COAST: the line from Portsoy to Spey Bay MAP: Alan Young
From Portsoy, the next stop was Glassaugh, but although the single platform and loading bays remained, the station buildings had been demolished, along with bridges 905 and 906. Between 909 and the demolished 910 were the distinct remains of an old signalbox, with the line doubling on the approach to Tochieneal station to provide a passing loop.
Both Glassaugh and Tochieneal closed to passengers in the 1950s, so it was unsurprising to find the station buildings demolished. Both platforms and a loading bay remained at Tochieneal, though densely overgrown.
Beyond here the single line heads back to the coast and the glorious seaside resort of Cullen, the viaduct 923 striding over the rooftops of the quaint Seatown cottages on eight huge arches.
HUGE ARCHES: the viaduct at Cullen
By 1975 the main station buildings on the single curving platform at Cullen had been demolished, but the platform remained, along with traces of the yard and loading bays.
Heading west, the line passes along the embankment above Cullen golf links towards Portknockie, which boasted a passing loop with staggered platforms, sidings and loading bay, but with the station buildings demolished following vandalism.
GLORIOUS: boats in Cullen harbour
The villages along this coast enjoyed a thriving fishing industry between the 17th and the early 20th centuries, and substantial harbours were built in both Portknockie and Findochty in the 1880s as the Banffshire coastal communities turned increasingly to herring fishing.
But if both villages were shaped by their maritime connections and strong community ties, they were pretty sleepy places during our summer holiday visits every year, far enough off the beaten track for many tourists to discover their enduring appeal, despite their picturesque harbours and empty beaches.
OFF THE BEATEN TRACK: Findochty
As a child in the 1960s, an unfamiliar car negotiating those narrow streets might be a talking point, and fishing nets were still hung out at the back to dry.
The railway may have been picturesque, but it was hardly busy, and with hindsight closure was inevitable, even if someone with vision might have foreseen a day when enthusiasts would lament the loss of a line with such glorious sea views.
By the 1970s, up on the clifftop at the single-track station, the platform and loading bay remained, but the wooden station building had been levelled. However even in its overgrown state, it wasn’t hard to imagine how special it must have felt to alight from a steam train on this platform on a summer’s evening.
LOST LINE: Findochty in 1978 PICTURE: Alan Young
When bigger vessels began to move along the coast to Buckie, Findochty harbour adapted to smaller boats and later leisure craft.
Proposals to build another harbour for Portessie at Craigenroan failed to materialise but there was hot competition to capitalise on the lucrative fish trade at Buckie, where the new harbour completed in 1880 tripled landings of herring and enabled larger trawlers to operate.
In the end, Buckie and Portessie would have two railways fighting for that fish traffic, both receiving royal assent in 1882. But the Highland Railway was able to steal a march on its rival by completing its line across the Enzie braes from Keith two years before the Moray Coast line would be completed through Buckie.
JOINT ENTERPRISE: Portessie station PICTURE: Alan Young
The railways would meet to pass under the single-track bridge 932, just east of a joint station at Portessie, where two platforms would serve the Great North line and one platform would be used by the Highland Railway, the latter opening in 1884 as the terminus of the branch line from Keith.
Villagers turned out in force for the special round-trip excursion train to the annual Keith Show on July 31 that year, but the four mixed trains that ran each way daily on the route took 40 minutes or more to climb over the braes and the sparsely populated settlements offered minimal passenger traffic.
Completion of the GNoSR coast route would effectively doom the branch, offering shorter westbound journeys and faster, more frequent and more convenient services to Aberdeen.
BIG DAY OUT: the annual Keith Show
The original intermediate Highland stations were at Forgie (later Aultmore), Enzie, Rathven and Buckie, with crossing loops at Forgie and Enzie, but after the inhabitants of Drybridge petitioned for a station, another opened on 1 April 1885 between Enzie and Rathven (despite the gradient being 1 in 60!).
But services on the line were shortlived. The onset of war saw the line closed in 1915 and the track lifted in 1917 to be reused at the Invergordon US naval base. Track was later restored from Keith to the distillery at Aultmore and between Portessie and Buckie in 1919, operated by the GNoSR.
The early closure ensured that by the 1970s most of the line was impassable, with station buildings and many other structures destroyed.
Back on the main coast line, the central part of the coastal route opened in 1886, though by the time of my visit in 1975 to Buckie, the station buildings were in poor repair and badly vandalised.
VANDALISED: Buckie station PICTURE: Alan Young
On the stone-built main buildings at the time there was a Caledonian Railway-coloured wooden board with the barely distinguishable lettering “British Railways – Buckie”, along with blue enamel Way Out and British Railways signs.
On the east side the line was blocked by the shipyard development, but to the west station footbridge 939 still bore the inscription Blaikie Brothers, Aberdeen, 1886 – an engineering company specialising in ironwork.
BLOCKED: the view towards Portessie PICTURE: Alan Young
Traces of loading bays remained on the harbour side of the station, along with the wooden waiting room in familiar dark green and cream colours. The old Highland line ran parallel to the Moray Coast line out of Buckie, with bridges 935 and 934 spanning all three sets of tracks.
In the other direction, bridges 940-949 led towards the single-platform station at Buckpool, some carrying other inscriptions: the pedestrian footpath at 944 was built by James Abernethy & Co (Engineers) of Aberdeen, while the iron footbridge 948 was built at the Rose St Foundry in Inverness in 1892.
HEADING WEST: the view towards Buckie town PICTURE: Alan Young
At Buckpool, the single platform and loading bay remained, but the station buildings had been demolished. An LNER anti-trespass sign at the entrance to the station from the east was a reminder of how from January 1, 1923 the Great North was swallowed up into the London and North Eastern Railway, one of the “Big Four” companies created by the Railways Act of 1921.
The company had a geographical monopoly on the eastern side of the country, while the London, Midland and Scottish Railway operated 7,000 route miles on the west. Both became part of British Railways in 1948, from which time all the old north-east lines became part of the Scottish Region.
West of Buckpool, mileposts 74 and 74¼ remained, along with two LNER anti-trespass signs at the entrance to Portgordon station.
POOR CONDITION: Portgordon station PICTURE: Alan Young
The wooden building on the single platform at Portgordon was still there in the 1970s, though in very poor condition, along with traces of the loading bay platforms. But while the demolition of bridges along the coastal section of the route gradually made life harder for ramblers, the creation of the Moray Coast trail from the 1990s helped to revitalise sections of the old line.
Running for 44 miles from Forres to Cullen, the trail developed from the late 1990s to showcase the wilderness quality of the imposing cliffs, coastal villages and glorious views over the Moray Firth.
Spey Bay was named Fochabers-on-Spey when it opened and went through various iterations before adopting its final name in 1918.
NAME CHANGES: Spey Bay in 1978 PICTURE: Alan Young
Opened as a twin-platformed station with a goods yard to the north, it was originally flanked by a pair of signalboxes though these closed in 1912 to be replaced by a single box which remained in use until 1966.
In the 1970s the brown-and-cream main station buildings on the eastbound platform were in a sorry state, remarkably still with old LNER and GNoSR consignment notes fluttering around the dilapidated booking hall, though later it would be transformed into an impressive private dwelling.
To the west of the station was the impressive Spey Viaduct, an iron girder structure which had become a vital part of the Moray Coast trail prior to its collapse into the water in December 2025.
On the other side, the trackbed leads towards Garmouth, with its single slightly curving remaining platform, two-sided loading bay and overgrown yard.
YOUTH CLUB: Garmouth station PICTURE: Alan Young
By the time of my visit in 1980, the main station buildings had been repainted in grey/blue and were being used by a local youth club group while those at the next station, Urquhart, were restored in lime and white as offices and toilet for a campsite.
Even in 1980 signs remained of an old clock, fountain and loading bay, though the missing loop line was overgrown.
RESTORED: the station buildings at Urquhart PICTURE: Alan Young
The final stop before rejoining the main line at Lossie Junction outside Elgin was Calcots, another neat wooden station with two platforms and a passing loop. It also once boasted a generous goods yard for agricultural traffic, a goods shed and two signalboxes.
Aside from these passing loops, the line was predominantly single track apart from a double track section between Buckie and Portessie. And remarkably, most of the remote stations survived intact until the final days of passenger traffic on the line in 1968.
NEAT: Calcots station PICTURE: Alan Young
The only early victims were Tochineal, which closed to passengers in 1951, and Glassaugh, which shut in 1953. Both closed completely in 1964 when a raft of other stations along the line shut to goods. Buckpool shut completely in 1960.
That left 15 stations open to passengers until that fateful day in May 1968 when the line shut completely. Cornhill, Portsoy, Cullen and Buckie clung onto their goods services until that date too, the faintest of reminders of the halycon days when hundreds of thousands of tons of fish were landed at north-east ports for rapid transit south to restaurants and dining tables around the country…
BANFF, PORTSOY & STRATHISLA RAILWAY
Authorised (Cairnie Junction – Banff Harbour): 27/7/1857 Renamed Banffshire Railway: 21/7/1863 Merged with the GNoSR: 12/8/1867
*: Only one train ran on this date, prior to a derailment. Full services began on August 2. **: Goods only. This section opened to passengers on 1/5/1886. ***: The loop was authorised retrospectively, on 19/7/1887.
Closed: Grange loop (Grange – Grange North Junction): P 7/3/60 Cairnie (jn) – Elgin (Lossie Jn) via Buckie: P/G/CC: 6/5/68
*: Originally a conditional halt called Barry, closed in 10/1863. RO 19/2/1872 as Glenbarry. **: Original 1859 terminus replaced by a new station in 1884 on extension to the south. The first station was retained for goods. ***: The Highland Railway line to a separate platform at Portessie O 1/8/1884.
Station openings Stations between Cairnie jn and Portsoy O 2/8/1859. Portsoy (2nd station), Glassaugh and Tochieneal O 1/4/1884. Garmouth, Urquhart and Calcots O 12/8/1884. Stations from Cullen to Fochabers-on-Spey O 1/5/1886.
Closures Tochieneal closed to passengers in 1951 and Glassaugh in 1953. Buckpool closed completely in 1960 and the Grange North junction loop was closed to passengers. Goods services were withdrawn from many stations on the line in 1964, when Glassaugh and Tochieneal closed completely. The remaining stations closed on 6/5/68 when passenger services were withdrawn and the line was closed completely.
Sincere thanks to Alan Young for permission to reproduce his pictures from Autumn 1978 chronicling stations on the route still standing on that date.
IT WAS in the summer of 1974 that I discovered the appeal of exploring old railway stations and closed railway lines.
Perhaps it was a timely transition from teenage trainspotter to railway historian, but the trigger was a glorious summer holiday exploring the railways of the Lake District with schoolfriends.
SUMMER HOLIDAY: on the Settle & Carlisle line
Based in a small cottage beside the west coast main line near Shap, we roamed across Cumberland and Westmorland uncovering the route of the Cockermouth, Keswick and Penrith Railway, visiting the picturesque Settle & Carlisle line and venturing east along the old North Eastern Railway route to Barnard Castle.
Though tracks had been lifted and some structures demolished, overgrown platforms and some station buildings remained years after closure, albeit frequently in poor condition.
Some detective work was needed to track down precise locations of forgotten stations, and more research was required to piece together the history of the line and find out when it actually closed to passengers and goods.
LOST LINES: inside the old terminus at Banff station PICTURE: Alan Young
All of which helped to ignite a lifelong interest in the infrastructure of our railway system that existed prior to the notorious Beeching cuts of the 1960s, when thousands of miles of routes were closed. I even ended up writing a book chronicling the opening and closing of lines across the South-east of England.
Days after our glorious Lake District holiday, I joined my parents for their annual trip to visit family on the Moray Coast – a perfect opportunity to take a closer look at what remained of what was once one of the most scenic railways in the country.
The Great North of Scotland Railway network fanned out west and north from Aberdeen to Ballater on Deeside and across to Keith, Elgin and Boat of Garten, where it met its great rival, the Highland Railway.
NETWORK: the GNoSR routes MAP: Alan Young
A series of branches took travellers towards the coastal towns of Boddam, Peterhead, Fraserburgh, Macduff and Lossiemouth – and a glorious loop ran from Cairnie Junction near Keith up to Portsoy and then along the cliffs towards Buckie and Elgin.
IMPOSING: the old railway viaduct at Cullen
A tentative exploration in August 1974 took me along the short clifftop stretch either side of the village where my mother had been born and grew up: Findochty, or Finechty as the locals pronounce it.
BUSTLING: the harbour at Findochty
The historic fishing village once had a bustling harbour supporting dozens of boats during the 18th and 19th centuries, and our family had strong trawler fishing connections, although these days leisure craft dominate the view of the church where my parents were married in 1954.
COLOURFUL: fishermen’s cottages in Findochty
Throughout the village, traditional fishermen’s cottages cluster around the narrow streets, profiles low to resist the wind and with colourful stone facings around the windows and doors, a distinctive style characterised in other adjoining fishing villages along the coast.
SANDY HAVEN: the east beach
On the other side of the village, the east beach where we played as children is as beautiful as ever, a wonderland of rockpools and soaring cliffs, caves and crashing waves on the edge of the eternally chilly North Sea.
From here you can see the cemetery on the cliffs where generations of the family are buried, as beautiful a location as any might wish for.
SEA VIEWS: the cemetery on the cliffs
Back in the day, you could catch a plume of steam up there on the clifftop too. After my parents’ wedding, guests from down south were seen off at the station, a wooden building similar in style to many others along the coast.
But by the time of my visit in 1974, the station buildings had been demolished and only the single platform and loading bay remained, along with foundations of a signalbox. Just outside the station bridge no 930 still carried the A942 over the old trackbed.
OVERGROWN: Findochty Station in 1978 PICTURE: Alan Young
The scene was little changed four years later in August 1978 when a fellow enthusiast, Alan Young, visited most of the old GNoSR stations as part of an ambitious resolve to visit all of the stations in Britain and Ireland.
Today, the view over the village from the cemetery remains as spectacular as ever but steam trains no longer pound along the cliffs towards Portknockie and Cullen as they once did.
SPECTACULAR: the view from the clifftop cemetery
The route closed completely on May 6 1968 along with 17 of the most remote and scenic stations in the country. But if Alan was not on hand to capture steam on the line in its heyday, he was able to provide pictures to help illustrate the memories I retained from walking the route as a teenager in the mid-1970s.
Inspired by that Lake District holiday in 1974, it wasn’t long before I was back on the overgrown platform at Findochty ready to find out more about the fate of the Moray Coast line – but that, as they say, is another story.
I WASN’T to know it at the time, but when I travelled by train for my first day at secondary school in September 1968, I had missed the official end of steam on British Railways by only a matter of weeks.
Within days, someone had introduced me to my first Ian Allan “combined volume” listing all Britain’s locomotives and other motive power, but the numbers we so avidly jotted down as we waited on the platform at South Croydon station were of diesels and electric multiple units, not steam engines.
END OF THE LINE: condemned engines at Barry scrapyard PICTURE: Mike Peart
The last timetabled steam-hauled passenger service had run from Preston to Liverpool on August 3 that year.
A week later a round-trip railtour from Liverpool Lime Street to Manchester Victoria and Carlisle would become the last BR steam-hauled mainline train, and on August 12 a steam ban was introduced on British Railways, marking a turning point in the history of rail travel in Britain.
CONDEMNED: Castle class engines at Swindon PICTURE: Mike Peart
But you can’t miss something you’ve never known, and in reality the end of steam had been in progress for years, ever since the sweeping 1954 modernisation plan paved the way for the transition to diesel and electric traction.
There were more than 16,000 steam engines on the railways in the mid-1950s but the numbers began dropping rapidly once the controversial Beeching cuts started to bite in the mid-1960s.
HERITAGE RAILWAY: Chinnor station closed in 1957
The strive for greater economic efficiency envisaged thousands of stations closing, along with some 5,000 miles of track, almost a third of the network.
Even though the last steam train to be built in Britain only emerged from Swindon Works in 1960, within a few years thousands were being withdrawn and sent to breakers’ yards around the country.
CONDEMNED: the scrap line at Swindon in 1962 PICTURE: Mike Peart
All of which meant that by the time we schoolboys were standing on freezing platforms watching the trains go by, steam was long gone. The last few dozen steam engines on the Southern Region had disappeared by the end of 1966. Western Region steam had finished the year before.
That meant large numbers of condemned locomotives arriving at the major BR works for cutting up, and as the pace of withdrawals swamped the storage space at Swindon and Derby, lines of engines began to appear in any available sidings or closed branch lines.
Clearing the backlog meant putting the dismantling of hundreds of locomotives out to tender with private scrapyards, including one which would become famous with railway enthusiasts and preservationists up and down the country – Woodham Brothers of Barry.
In 1959, Dai Woodham spent time at Swindon Works learning how to scrap a steam locomotive, and in March of that year the first batch of Great Western Railway engines was despatched to his sidings in South Wales.
But if most of Britain’s steam locomotives were to suffer an ignominious end in some busy scrapyard, this was one place which did not rush to cut up the steam engines it acquired.
The family scrapyard had a healthy business buying and scrapping withdrawn brake vans and wagons, but although it also acquired almost 300 steam locomotives for scrap, only a small proportion of them were ever cut up.
In the early years many engines were dismantled soon after arrival, but as the numbers of new arrivals increased, additional storage was found and the queues of rusting hulks in the sidings beside the oil terminal began to grow.
Woodhams began to buy Southern Region engines from mid-1964 and in 1965 no fewer than 65 locomotives arrived at the scrapyard, but by the autumn of that year cutting virtually ceased as the scrapmen concentrated instead on breaking up yet more freight wagons and brake vans.
Dai Woodham continued to purchase locomotives until the end of steam in 1968 with many of the later deliveries being of the BR Standard designs. But of almost 300 engines purchased between 1959 and 1968, more than 200 remained towards the end of 1968, when enthusiasts began to realise that Barry might be the only remaining source of locomotives which could be bought for preservation.
Only one engine was saved from Barry in 1968 and it was 1970 before the next locomotive was moved. But by the mid-1970s a mass exodus had begun, despite the poor condition of many of the rusting hulks, stripped of their brasses, copper pipes and whistles.
My own pilgrimage to Barry took place on November 2, 1973. By that stage 44 engines had been rescued, including the Great Western 2-8-0 tank engine 5239 that we would encounter many years later on the Dartmouth Steam Railway in Paignton.
REUNION: GWR 5239 in Paignton
Lovingly restored in the striking dark green livery of the Great Western Railway, it was hard to believe that this was the same engine we had seen rusting in the sidings at Barry, where it had languished for 10 years before being rescued in the summer of 1973.
Rescuing those rusting hulks is a truly monumental task that might typically take 10 years or even double that, depending on funding, volunteer availability and the locomotive’s condition.
RESPLENDENT: 5239 in original GWR livery
Rescuing those rusting hulks is a truly monumental task that might typically take 10 years or even double that, depending on funding, volunteer availability and the locomotive’s condition.
Another tank engine which suffered a much longer stay at Barry was 2-6-2T 5526, which arrived in November 1962 and wasn’t liberated until 22 years later in July 1985, the 166th loco to be saved from the yard.
A stalwart of the South Devon Railway, the ‘Small Prairie’ tank has clocked up more than a million miles in service and popped up on different preserved lines around the country, from Swanage in Dorset to Kent and Oxfordshire, where I found her visiting the Chinnor and Princes Risborough line.
LIBERATED: GWR 5526 at Chinnor
Built in 1928 at the GWR’s Swindon works, the engine saw service all over the West Country before it was withdrawn. Restoration work started in 1985 but the engine has only been fully back in service since 2003.
Back in Barry, the departures continued. Unbelievably, many of the dozens of rusting engines we saw there on a rainy November day in 1973 would be rescued as the years went past, a vivid reminder of just how important a role was played in the story of railway preservation by David Lloyd Victor Woodham MBE, BEM, otherwise known as “Dai”.
He died in 1994 but his legacy lives on in the hundreds of steam engines rescued for posterity from what could have been their final resting place, rusting away in the sidings down by Barry Docks.
FOOTNOTE:Mike Peart, founder member of the Great Western Society/Didcot Railway Centre, recalls the sad end of 5006 Tregenna Castle, which he pictured in the scrap line at Swindon Works in 1962.
The engine was the favourite locomotive of legendary driver J W Street, who achieved fame for his record-breaking runs with the ‘Cheltenham Flyer’ and wrote the book I Drove the Cheltenham Flyer, which was published in 1951.
SAD END: Tregenna Castle at Swindon in 1962 PICTURE: Mike Peart
Peart recalls: “He described as ‘The best engine for her work’ he ever had. Many of his excellent runs were timed and submitted to the railway magazines.”
Street became something of a celebrity in newspaper reports and films, while on June 6, 1932, Tregenna Castle did the Swindon to Paddington world record run in 56 minutes and 47 seconds.
Says Peart: “The engine can also briefly be seen in the 1932 film “The Ghost Train” based on Arnold Ridley’s play. The film was shot between Reading and Bramley on the Basingstoke line and the Great Western Railway received £800 for its services in making the film.”
WE’RE in rural Buckinghamshire but the station is frozen in time, taking us back to Cambridgeshire in the 1960s.
There’s the unmistakeable sound of a steam train puffing up the incline, but passengers wandering along the platform can also spot the odd emu or wallaby and hear the cry of a peacock.
FROZEN IN TIME: waiting for a train at Fawley Hill
Like Alice in Wonderland, you could be forgiven for feeling a little disorientated by the unexpected and slightly surreal surroundings, but that’s quite a common sensation among guests to Fawley Hill outside Henley.
Once described by Country Life magazine as the most bonkers estate in Britain, it is home to a restored Victorian railway station, the steepest standard gauge railway track in the world, a railway museum and more than 20 animal species.
SURREAL: the surroundings can be disorientating
It all began as a “small-scale” hobby of the late Sir William McAlpine, great-grandson of the engineer and construction company boss Sir Robert McAlpine. “Bill” had been given a plot of land on his father’s estate in 1959 and the company’s architect set about designing Fawley Hill, which was built in 1960.
Back on the platform at Somersham station a small tank locomotive has pulled in with a couple of brake vans for the short trip down the hill that will give visitors a better idea of the scale of the whimsical realm created by Sir William and Lady McAlpine.
ROUND TRIP: a steam train at Somersham
Along the route are landmarks ranging from massive station facades (from Broad Street and Ludgate Hill), station arches from Waterloo and even a huge England-Scotland border sign.
The half-mile trip also provides a chance to meet some of the extensive menagerie of animals which roam the estate.
DOWNHILL TRIP: the Hill Line from Somersham
You pass under a footbridge from the Isle of Wight, a Midland Railway signalbox and a circle of columns which once graced the undercroft of St Pancras station. There’s a stone frontage from a parcels depot in Cardiff and an ornate cast-iron crest from Blackfriars Bridge in London.
For train enthusiasts, it’s a veritable treasure trove. Those large-scale relics in the grounds are gathered from all over the UK and beyond, but it’s the museum here which demonstrates the true scale of McAlpine’s fascination with railway memorabilia.
DEPARTURE BOARD: trains from Brighton
From the huge old wooden departure board which once stood in Brighton station to countless signs, paintings, maps, coats of arms, models, clocks…it contains a truly mind-boggling array of all types of memorabilia from the heydays of Britain’s railway network.
Over more than half a century he gathered together thousands of items which might have been lost or scrapped, playing a major role in rescuing the Romney, Hythe and Dymchurch Railway in Kent when it was in danger of closing, as well as the Ffestiniog and Dart Valley Railways.
He also saved the famous LNER Flying Scotsman locomotive 4472, buying the engine, paying off creditors and repatriating it from the United States two years after an ill-fated American tour had bankrupted its previous owner and led to it being impounded in San Francisco.
TREASURE TROVE: a model railway in the museum
He and his second wife, Lady Judy, married at Somersham station in 2004 and the self-styled “mad redhead” has continued to make it possible for guests to explore his cherished collection since his death in 2018, helped by a small army of enthusiastic volunteers who are clearly devoted to her.
Our visit is on one of the regular open days organised for volunteers to show their families and friends what they get up to at Fawley Hill and there are smiles everywhere, as my neighbour points out.
“It’s a happy place,” he says as we survey the cheerful throng milling around the museum and station yard. “Whenever you’re here you see people smiling.”
HAPPY PLACE: Fawley Hill is staffed by volunteers
The enthusiasm is infectious. He stumbled across the estate while out walking, when he was bemused to hear the sound of a steam train puffing up a gradient, and on discovering the existence of Fawley Hill, immediately signed up as a volunteer.
Days on the estate start with the feeding of the assorted animals which live here, from meerkats and lemurs to sika deer and playful emus.
“To see so many different animals milling around you, being remarkably polite to each other and to you, is surreal,” admits Lady Judy.
Bill became involved with the Zoological Society of London (ZSL) when he built the narrow-gauge railway at Whipsnade, and started taking surplus zoo animals soon after.
With zoos constantly moving animals around to prevent inbreeding and conserve species which are dying out in the wild, there comes a point where “spare” animals need to be housed, which is when Fawley Hill may be able to help.
“Here they live virtually wild,” says Lady Judy. “We feed each day and there are plenty of houses and shelters but none are allocated and no one makes the animals ‘go to bed’ at night.”
The house itself is hidden away from prying eyes, though we know from articles in Tatler and elsewhere that it is every bit as disarmingly eccentric as the rest of the estate.
It boasts a hall hung with dozens of hats, a dining table dominated by a miniature train track with a tiny locomotive that delivers condiments to guests and a playroom stacked with every imaginable toy, not to mention a life-size Elvis and a folding floor that is a gigantic map of England.
FANTASY LAND: Fawley Hill Railway
Back at Somersham station, there’s time to take a final survey of the surreal surroundings before heading back to the outside world and reality: less colourful, entertaining and smile-inducing than the exotic fantasy land of Fawley Hill.
FOR railway enthusiasts visiting the Fawley Hill home of the late Sir William McAlpine, some of the most striking exhibits in his extraordinary collection line the trackside of the garden railway that grew to be the centrepiece of life on the estate.
HIDDEN TREASURE: the Fawley Hill Railway
When in 1965 Bill bought the last remaining steam engine owned by the construction company founded by his great-grandfather, there was only a short stretch of track for it to stand on.
All that was to change over the next few years with the laying of tracks along the valley floor linking to a new “Hill line” with a remarkable 1 in 13 gradient up to a station area where a platform was being built.
RELOCATED: Somersham station
The station buildings comprise a waiting room and offices from Somersham station, which stood on the St Ives to March line in Cambridgeshire and was once part of the Great Eastern Railway network.
Somersham became a junction in 1889 with the opening of a new line to Ramsey and it’s thought the buildings at Fawley date from that period, the station having closed to passengers in 1967 and fallen into disrepair.
In 1977 the buildings were carefully taken to pieces for painstaking rebuilding and restoration at Fawley Hill, although sharp-eyed visitors will notice adornments from Clapham Junction, Cardiff Riverside and Liverpool Street stations.
STORE: the tunnel at Somersham
The tunnel at the end of the short platforms was constructed in the 1960s as an engine shed and now acts as a store for rolling stock after a purpose-built shed was completed in the yard.
Everywhere you look there’s a sign or other artefact to grab your eye.
PLEASING PROSPECT: the view from the platform
We’re waiting for our train to arrive, and today it’s a guest engine on temporary loan from the Foxfield Railway in Staffordshire, a little tank engine owned and lovingly restored by Jack Dibnah, son of the celebrity steeplejack and TV personality Fred Dibnah.
SPECIAL GUEST: Jack Dibnah’s saddletank
It’s a temporary replacement for Fawley Hill’s resident Hudswell Clarke 0-6-0 saddle tank, No 31, the first steam engine to arrive here back in 1965, which is currently undergoing a major overhaul.
Built in 1926 by Kerr, Stuart & Co to shunt coal wagons for a gas works at Etruria in Stoke-on-Trent, the tiny visiting saddletank no 4388 was sold on to a local foundry and when rail traffic ceased there in 1962 lay in a corner of the yard for 20 years before being sold to the Foxfield Railway.
GAS WORKS LOCO: 4388 was built in 1926
It was restored to steam and ran until 1999, when it needed a full overhaul. Bought in 2020 by Jack Dibnah, the engine feels very much at home at Fawley Hill, alternating or pairing up on trips with the resident BR Class 03 diesel shunter no D2120.
RESIDENT DIESEL: BR shunter D2120
The 0-6-0 diesel-mechanical shunter is one of 230 built at Swindon and Doncaster between 1957 and 1962. Entering service in 1959, it spent its working life in the Swansea area of South Wales before being withdrawn in 1986.
It arrived at Fawley Hill wearing the standard BR rail blue livery and its new 1974 number 03120 but has since been repainted in early BR green with its original number and loco shedplate of 87C (Danygraig), the depot where it entered service.
ORIGINAL LIVERY: restored to early BR green
Even before you leave Somersham station for the short trip downhill, there’s a lot to take in.
Isn’t that the old station sign from High Wycombe station harking back to the days before the link to Marlow closed to passengers in 1970? And behind it the little crossing box which once stood at Cheshunt station?
THE WAY WE WERE: High Wycombe’s old platform sign
Volunteers starting out as guides here for the Fawley Museum Society have a lot of facts to get their heads around. The footbridge we are passing under comes from Brading on the Isle of Wight; on one side is a weighing machine from Ashford Works in Kent, and there’s even a “wig-wag” crossing sign from the Sante Fe railroad in America.
STEPPING UP: the footbridge from Brading
In the station yard stands the first building to come to the Fawley railway: a 1905 Midland Railway signalbox originally erected at Swadlincote East outside Burton-on-Trent but later moved to the sidings controlled by the brewers Bass, Ratcliff & Gretton at Shobnall Maltings.
BREWERY SIDINGS: the Midland Railway signalbox
Bass expanded its malting and ales stores in the 1870s and the eight miles of private track needed a signalbox to control train movements. The Swadlincote box was moved there in 1955 and remained until the line closed in 1968, arriving at Fawley the following summer.
And so the journey continues: on to Broad Street, Blackfriars and Waterloo, down the hill towards tiny buildings gathered from the length and breadth of the country, from a Newton Abbot lamp hut to part of Invergordon North signalbox, north of Inverness.
DOWNHILL TRIP: the LSWR Waterloo station arches
Even on this trip, we’re only scratching the surface of a collection that’s vast in its scale and intriguing in its scope: from wagons and coaches to models and maps, paintings and horse brasses.
Sir William’s lifelong love of railways and his construction industry connections allowed him to spent more than half a century amassing his extraordinary private museum, rescuing artefacts, buildings, preserved railways and locomotives along the way.
LASTING LEGACY: the Fawley Hill Railway
When he was alive, he would often be found walking his dogs around the estate discussing new acquisitions with the volunteers.
You get the feeling he would be delighted to see those volunteers out in force today, and so many smiling faces still getting so much pleasure from his legacy.
The museum and railway are open on a limited number of days during the year and admission is only by prior application and invitation. See the museum’s events page for details.
LAST week’s picture choice highlighted the discovery of a batch of old photographs from almost half a century ago recalled a glorious summer holiday exploring the railways of the Lake District.
The year was 1974 and for five railway-mad teenagers, the perfect destination for a first summer break away from home was a dream cottage just feet from the West Coast main line near Shap Summit.
From there, it was just a short drive to explore the spectacular scenery of the famous Settle & Carlisle route, or venture westwards to find out what was left of the long-closed Cockermouth, Keswick & Penrith Railway.
The Settle-Carlisle line is the 73-mile-long section of the old Midland Railway main line running through glorious scenery in the Yorkshire Dales and the North Pennines and boasting a number of notable tunnels and viaducts, making it one of the UK’s most popular routes for steam charter trains and specials.
Much loved by railway photographers for its glorious backdrops, the line links towns like Settle and Appleby-in-Westmorland with a number of rural communities along the route.
At the time of our visit, the line still boasted old-fasioned Midland “totem” signs, like those at Appleby West, where the Midland line crossed the old North Eastern Railway route to Kirkby Stephen, the Eden Valley line.
This was a time in the line’s history where services were not exactly flourishing, but thankfully the route survived closure attempts in the 1980s after a spirited campaign mounted by rail groups, enthusiasts, local authorities and residents.
Just as well. Passenger numbers have soared since then, with closed stations reopening and quarries being reconnected to the line, allowing passengers to continue to savour what has been consistently voted one of the world’s “ten greatest train journeys”.
Armed with old local Ordnance Survey maps, our mission was to track down the routes of the lost lines which once linked the surviving routes in a rainbow of colours on our pre-grouping atlas, the book which so helpfully shows the ownership of lines before the 1923 amalgamation into four major systems: the LNWR, LNER, Southern Railway and Great Western.
After a visit to Carnforth – then and now a place of pilgrimage for railway enthusiasts and the station where the film Brief Encounter was partly filmed in February 1945 – there was time to meander back past the closed Midland stations at Halton, Caton and Hornby before rejoining the line to Hellifield and head north to Settle.
This is a landscape of evocative place names and stunning scenery, from the 1.5mile-long Blea Moor Tunnel to the towering 104ft-high Ribblehead viaduct. But back in 1974 many of the station buildings were in poor condition or privately owned.
Onwards to Dent, Hawes Junction and the signal box at Ais Gill summit and into Kirkby Stephen, where the East station still had its overall roof, though the goods yard and shed had been removed. Thankfully this is another location to get a new lease of life, courtesy of the Stainmore Railway Company.
If the West Coast mainline had its thundering Class 86 and 87 electric-hauled expresses barrelling up and down the main line between Euston and Glasgow, the Settle line still boasted a rich collection of the diesels of the era, particularly the “Peak” class locomotives whose names echoed the contours of the British landscape.
Originally numbered D1-D10, D11-D137 and D138-D193, the Class 44, 45 and 46 diesels rolled off the production line at Derby and Crewe from 1959 and were withdrawn from the end of the 1970s right through the 1980s.
Class 45s replaced steam as the main traction on the Midland Main Line from 1962 and had a 20-year heyday there until they were relegated to secondary services following introduction of high-speed trains on the route.
Back in 1974 they were still in their element on the main line as we meandered north through Long Marton, New Biggin and Culgaith to Langwathby, Lazonbury & Kirkoswald and Armathwaite, some proudly bearing their new computerised numbers introduced the previous year, like 45009 at Hawes Junction, others still bearing the original numbers, like 21 at Horton-in-Ribblesdale or 24 and 31 at Appleby West. The D prefix was dropped in 1968 when the last steam engines were withdrawn.
There are other diesel interlopers we stumble across on our wanderings too, naturally. A couple of Class 25s crossing Blea Moor viaduct, with others at Ormside, Long Marton and Culgaith. And even the smell of steam to be recaptured at the Lakeside & Haverthwaite Railway near Ulverston.
There are Class 50s galore over at Oxenholme, Kendal, Ulverston, Dalton and Barrow, not to mention the odd Class 40 wandering around Newbiggin and Culgaith.
But if the pictures predictably provide a visual record of railway comings and goings around the Lakes in the mid-1970s, they also offer a vivid reminder of a remarkable week of youthful exploration and discovery.
Rediscovering the shots when the slides were finally burned onto CD in 2019 provided a chance to look back through the notebooks and discover exactly where we ended up on that memorable Shap holiday.
Scrupulous notes and diagrams record what buildings and tracks remained on some of the closed lines, faithfully following the route of the Cockermouth, Keswick and Penrith route from Workington to Penrith, and then working east again from Kirkby Stephen towards the now-infamous Barnard Castle.
The Cockermouth line closed west of Keswick in April 1966 and the Keswick to Penrith section followed in March 1972, which meant that there was still plenty of evidence to be found of platforms, old station buildings and signalboxes. Today, much of the latter section is maintained as a cycle and walking route.
As for the old North Eastern Railway line east from Tebay, the tracks had long been lifted at Gaisgill, Ravenstonedale, Barras and Bowes following closure in the 1960s.
Not as insightful and amusing as Adrian Mole’s teenage diaries, perhaps. But a wonderful glimpse back into a time of innocence and adventure set against the timeless scenery of the Lake District landscape.
IT’S funny how a photograph has the power to sweep the years away in an instant.
This chance discovery from almost half a century ago recalled a glorious summer holiday in the Lake District while studying for A levels.
As a party of railway-mad teenagers, our destination for that break in July 1974 was a dream cottage, literally feet from the West Coast main line near Shap Summit.
And as well as offering the chance to watch the electric-hauled express trains thundering past the door, it provided the perfect touring base to explore the glorious Settle & Carlisle line south towards Leeds, or the long-closed Cockermouth, Keswick & Penrith Railway west towards Workington.
But if the holiday was SO memorable, how come the pictures remained hidden for almost 50 years? The answer, in part, lies in changing technology.
For these pictures were taken as colour slides, which might have been perfect for showing on the school’s slide projector – but not owning one at home meant it was never really possible to see what the pictures actually showed.
With exams to prepare for – and the excitement of university beckoning – it wasn’t long before the small collection of a few dozen slides was consigned to a little box at the back of a cupboard, surviving a succession of house moves, but their contents never seeing the light of day.
Flash forward to 2019 and the chance to get the slides burned onto CD finally provided the opportunity to see those shots from almost 50 years ago.
Predictably, perhaps, most might be only of interest to railway enthusiasts, with many of them chronicling the stream of Class 86 and 87 electric locomotives barrelling up and down the main line between Euston and Glasgow.
It also showcases some spectacular Lake District scenery – this part of the route over bleak Shap Fell was hacked out by thousands of tough navvies using picks and shovels in an amazing piece of Victorian engineering from 1844 onwards.
But what of that cheeky smile in the signalbox mirror? Although in the year below the rest of us at school, Pete – or Charlie as he tends to be known these days – was a sufficiently dedicated railway enthusiast to be welcomed along for the week-long adventure.
Nice, then, to discover that Charlie never lost his love of railways – or his equally affectionate memories of that break in the Lake District all those years ago. As he said in 2019 when the pictures first came to light: “I often look out of the window when I’m heading north to see whether I can see that cottage. I spend my life playing with trains…… busman’s holiday really.”
And what of that glorious Settle & Carlisle line? More of that next week, perhaps.
IT’S more than half a century since a train last ran through Crouch End railway station in north London.
But there are probably more people wandering along its platforms today than at the height of the steam railway era.
That’s partly because this line never really enjoyed a true “heyday” and partly because the route has been a parkland walk for more than 35 years.
It may be only a few miles from the modern transport hub of Finsbury Park, but the line through here to Highgate and the branch from there to Alexandra Palace never really took off in the way the developers had hoped.
Branches would follow to Alexandra Palace and High Barnet. Swallowed up by the Great Northern Railway and later the London and North Eastern Railway (LNER), part of the route would become the High Barnet branch of the Northern Line, but ambitious Tube expansion plans in the 1930s were thwarted by the Second World War.
In some ways Alexandra Palace was doomed from the start. The branch was constructed by the Muswell Hill Railway Company and opened on 24 May 1873 along with the palace. However, when the palace burned down only two weeks after opening, the service was considerably reduced and then closed for almost two years while the palace was rebuilt.
There were other periods of temporary closure too due to insufficient demand, though in 1935 it looked as if it would get a new lease of life when London Underground revealed plans to electrify the branch.
Works to modernise the track were well advanced when they were halted by the war, services reduced to rush hours only as a result of wartime economy measures.
After the war, dwindling passenger numbers and a shortage of funds led to the cancellation of the unfinished works in 1950 and British Railways withdrew passenger services to Alexandra Palace on 3 July 1954 along with the rest of the route from Finsbury Park.
After the track was lifted, most of the platforms and station buildings were demolished but two sections from Finsbury Park to Alexandra Palace, excluding the tunnels and station at Highgate, were converted into the Parkland Walk, which was officially opened in 1984.
Stroud Green station consisted of two wooden side platforms which were gutted by fire in 1967 and demolished shortly afterwards, but Crouch End was more substantial and both platforms survive.
The line continued to be used for goods into the 1960s and by London Underground for train stock movements until 1970 when it was completely closed. The track was lifted a couple of years later, by which time it was already being used as an unofficial walkway.
A hundred years ago the steam train took just six minutes to get here from Finsbury Park, and another 10 or 11 to chug all the way round to Alexandra Palace.
Today the journey takes a little longer but the 3.9-mile route is designated a local nature reserve, part of the 78-mile Capital Ring Walk round Inner London, and reveals a glimpse of north London life that motorists never see.
From here a glance back at the city skyline reminds you just how far this feels from the hubbub of central London – a green corridor of trees and birdsong providing 21st-century Londoners with a welcome respite from the concrete jungle and rumble of city traffic.
HENRY Allum doesn’t need much encouragement to go for a walk.
Show him a footpath, ancient abbey or closed railway line and he’s off, map, phone and microphone at the ready, all set to plan another video upload for his Youtube channel.
So it seems only natural to suggest we meet in Black Park for a chat and ramble, given that Henry has been back home with his parents in Chalfont St Peter since the lockdown began in March – and using that time to visit as many interesting places on his old home patch as he can.
HOME TURF: Henry has featured more local destinations during lockdown
It was around 2016 that the 31-year-old first thought about uploading short videos about his visits to heritage railways, but now Henry’s Adventures have become a regular feature on Youtube, Facebook and Instagram, with hundreds of subscribers checking in to see what he’s been up to.
In the past couple of years his uploads have begun to attract a lot more attention – not only from railway enthusiasts but a more general audience intrigued by a range of different subjects, from outdoors rambles to historical sites.
REGULAR UPLOADS: Henry’s subjects range from steam railways to rural rambles
“I do some to do with railways, but also castles, canals, anything I’m interested in,” he says, perhaps with a slight flicker of frustration at being as being typecast too easily as a railway buff when there are so many other things that fascinate him.
Although dozens of the short videos do chronicle railway visits – some dating back to the 90s – others include visits to sites of historical or natural interest at home and abroad, taking him as far afield as Belgium, Portugal and Romania.
OUT AND ABOUT: Henry visits the ruins of Godstow Abbey on the Thames
Many focus on steam train trips or visits to rail centres, reflecting not only his own passion for steam transport but his professional role organising railway journeys for groups at home and abroad.
Based at Leek in Staffordshire before the lockdown, some of his videos look at abandoned lines in that area, while others capture steam trains in action around the country – and miniature railways too.
SMALL SCALE: Henry calls in at the Vanstone Woodland Railway in Hertfordshire
Henry worked for the National Trust and at Bekonscot Model Village before taking on his current role, but was furloughed when the coronavirus crisis instantly impacted on the travel and leisure sector.
That allowed more time to concentrate on his Youtube venture, but initially prevented him from straying far from Chalfont St Peter.
“The furlough scheme has given me the chance to make more videos and upload some archive stuff,” he says – including some railway clips from family videos his father had shot.
MINIATURE WORLD: Henry at Bekonscot model village, where he used to work
Prior to lockdown, it was only after setting himself the challenge of visiting all of the country’s miniature railways that he realised the sheer scale of the task – there are around 340 of them, not including those privately owned.
Undeterred, he’s made a good start by uploading the first 20 or so, while making plans for more visits when the opportunity arises.
BACK TO NATURE: exploring National Trust properties in West Berkshire
A prolific vlogger with more than 200 uploads to his credit, passing the 1,000 subscriber mark means his channel can carry advertisements and potentially generate Youtube income – though this is a labour of love and he is under no illusions about making any real money through his videos.
Most of the uploads are short and straightforward, with minimal editing, and mainly filmed on his own, with occasional help from his Hungarian girlfriend Barbara.
PROLIFIC: Henry’s Youtube channel features more than 200 videos
He has a relaxed, easygoing style when addressing the camera and realises in many cases the central attraction is the locomotive, castle or station in question, rather than him hogging the limelight.
He has also been making the most of the furlough period to go back through old family films and upload archive footage from the 90s, searching for appropriate railway clips that his subscribers might appreciate.
WATCH THIS SPACE: Henry has plenty more adventures in the pipeline
The regularity of his posting has seen visitor numbers grow, and while some short clips may only receive 150 visits, some have attracted much bigger audiences, with several hundred tuning in to two series of short films shot around the village of Chalfont St Peter and following the route of the River Misbourne, with many adding comments and expressing their interest in the footage.
Surprise hits might attract more than 1,000 views – from closed lines to Cheshire’s steepest railway to a ramble round the Romanian city of Oradea – and his Facebook page now boasts more than 7,000 followers.
Always restless for another outing, it’s sometimes hard to know what to tackle next. What about the 78-mile Capital Ring walk round London, perhaps – or local long-distance walks like the Chiltern Way? And of course there are still those miniature railways beckoning.
It looks as if Henry’s in-tray is overflowing, which means his Youtube subscribers won’t have to wait too long for his next adventure…
[Sure enough, here’s Henry back on the trail a few days after we spoke…]
