IT’S August 1975 and I’m standing on the platform of the dilapidated Banff station on the Moray coast surveying the remains of a once proud little terminus.
I’m 17 and if I do take any pictures with my very unreliable camera, they have been long lost.
But unbeknown to me, a fellow enthusiast arrived at the same spot three years later, and his pictures reveal that the site had changed little in the intervening period.
For me, it’s part of a summertime foray to walk as much as I can of the old Moray Coast line which ran from Cairnie Junction near Keith up to Portsoy and then along the cliffs towards Buckie and Elgin.
Alan Young, from Newcastle upon Tyne, was fascinated as a child by the disused Byker station not far from his home in Heaton, and continued to seek out closed stations and look into why and when they closed.
By the early 1970s he had resolved to photograph all the country’s stations if he could, and his travels took him to the north-east of Scotland in Autumn 1978.
My notes from my 1975 visit reveal that the station buildings still remained, with their distinctive green and white colouring, although much vandalised and in very poor condition, including the adjoining disused station master’s house.
Under the awning were the remains of the ticket office, waiting room and offices, along with a double-siding platform and a small loading bay nearby which still housed the base of an old water pump.
The remnants of an old wooden sign proclaimed Banff Goods Station, erected after its closure to passengers on July 6, 1964, along with the other stations on the branch.
In its heyday, it must have looked like the sort of perfect little coastal terminus that railway modellers would love to replicate. By the time I returned in 1980, the buildings had been completely demolished, the sign was gone and the bay platform was filled with rubble.
The Great North of Scotland Railway was formed in 1845 with the ambition of building a double-track main line from Aberdeen to Inverness. In the end, the railway only got as far as Keith, with a separate line – later part of the Highland Railway – being built to form what was to become the main line to Inverness.
Meanwhile the line from Cairnie Junction to Banff Harbour was originally the main line of the Banff, Portsoy and Strathisla Railway, authorised in 1857 and opened to Banff Harbour on July 30, 1859, with a short branch to Portsoy, although an early derailment meant full services did not begin until August 2.
The GNoSR agreed to work the line in 1863 and the railway was renamed the Banffshire Railway later the same year, amalgamating with the GNoSR in 1867.
Originally Banff Harbour station, Banff was renamed in June 1928, the single-track line to Tillynaught passing through a couple of halts which had opened in 1914 at Golf Club House and Bridgefoot before reaching Ladysbridge station, which had been known as Lady’s Bridge until 1886.
Here, when I visited in 1976 and again in 1980, the platforms remained along with the lights in the station yard, the loading bay and level crossing gates.
On the other side of Ladysbridge was another mysterious little farming halt dating from the opening of the line but which had disappeared from the timetables by 1864.
Ordens Platform reappeared in Bradshaw between 1/17 and 9/20, but may have remained as a conditional and unadvertised stop before this time. It featured in the LNER timetables from 14/7/24 and was also known as Ordens Halt, serving such a rural area that its flimsy looking wooden shelter remained intact for years.
None of the three halts had any goods facilities, so they closed completely when the line shut to passengers in 1964. But if Ordens felt remote, the junction station at Tillynaught was hardly any less rural.
Named after a local farm and heavily overgrown by the time I visited, it was hard to believe that this was ever a station with much local business – though my uncle did say he remembered the station master yelling out the name “Tillynaught, Tillynaught…change here for Banff” when the Moray Coast line trains passed through.
The station master’s house and another private dwelling were both in poor condition when I arrived there one August day in 1975, walking on foot along the old main line from Cornhill to Portsoy. The stone island platform was much overgrown, particularly on the Banff branch line side, but although all the station buildings had gone, a stone loading bay remained on the Portsoy side.
But then Tillynaught, along with many smaller stations on the Moray Coast line, had already lost its goods services in April 1964, three months before the Banff branch had its passenger services withdrawn.
Trains still ran on the main line round through Buckie until May 6, 1968, but that was the dreaded day when all trains stopped running into the little station at Banff after more than a century.
BANFF, PORTSOY & STRATHISLA RAILWAY
Authorised: 27/7/1857
RN Banffshire Railway: 21/7/1863
Merged with the GNoSR: 12/8/1867
Opened: Tillynaught – Banff Harbour: 30/7/1859
Closed: Tillynaught – Banff
6/7/64 (passengers)
6/5/68 (goods/completely)
Stations
ORDENS PLATFORM (P/CC 6/7/64) no goods
LADYSBRIDGE (P 6/7/64 G/CC 6/5/68)
BRIDGEFOOT HALT (P/CC 6/7/64) no goods
GOLF CLUB HOUSE HALT (P/CC 6/7/64) no goods
BANFF [BANFF HARBOUR] (P 6/7/64 G/CC 6/5/68)