Dave’s introduction to Granton railways

Although there are no railways in Granton now, they were important at one time, both for carrying goods to and from Granton Harbour and various factories and businesses and for taking passengers on long and short journeys.

A lot of the railways in Great Britain were built in the 1830s and 1840s and the first railway to be built in our area dates from then.

It was the Edinburgh Leith & Newhaven Railway, and when it first opened in 1842 the line ran from Scotland Street, in the New Town in Edinburgh, to Trinity Crescent, near the Chain Pier. The pier later blew down in a storm but at the time there were steamer services from it. The 5th Duke of Buccleuch, who had Granton Harbour built, was involved with the company. The line was soon extended over a bridge where the Z-bend and traffic lights are at the east end of Lower Granton Road and along the shore to Granton Harbour, which had been opened in 1838.

At the other end the line went though a tunnel to a station called Canal Street, at right angles to the present Waverley Station and where Princes Mall is now. The line in the tunnel was too steep for the railway to use steam locomotives, and trains were hauled up it by a rope between the rails, which was pulled by a stationary engine at the top of the slope.

Later, in 1868, a new line was built from Waverley Station through Abbeyhill to Bonnington, so that the steep tunnel could be closed and normal railway engines used for the whole journey.

At Granton the railway connected with ferry boats that crossed the Firth of Forth to Burntisland. There were two kinds of ferry - 'Goods Boats' which were train ferries that carried railway wagons over the Forth and 'Passenger Boats' which were paddle steamers to take the people who wanted to cross the Firth of Forth.

At Burntisland, the goods wagons were taken back off the boat, another railway engine was coupled to them and they went on by rail. The passengers got on another train which would be waiting for them. The station at Granton was very close to the ferry, on the Middle Pier where Lochinvar Drive is now. The station at Burntisland was also close to the pier. From 1846 to 1890 this was part of the main East Coast railway line to Perth, Dundee and Aberdeen. In 1890 when the Forth Bridge opened, the long distance trains started using it and after that the line to Granton was just used by local passenger trains and goods trains.

The passenger trains stopped in 1925, a few years after the Edinburgh and Leith tramway systems were joined up and passengers could travel into Edinburgh city centre without a change of tram. Until then the trains were made up of small steam engines with four-wheeled wooden carriages but the journey from Granton to Edinburgh only took 13 minutes - less than the bus today. The next picture shows the type of engine and train that were used on these services.

Goods trains ran until 1986 and it was then lifted and the embankment beside Lower Granton Road taken away. Part of this line, from Trinity to Canonmills, is now a walkway.

The other main railway with lines in the Granton area was the Caledonian Railway. They were based in Glasgow and ran trains from Edinburgh to Glasgow, Carlisle, Stirling, Perth and Oban. They opened a line to Granton from a line they already had at Dalry in 1861. This line was used for goods trains to Granton Harbour but there were no normal passenger trains. Later, when Granton Gas Works was built, there were special trains for workers at the Gas Works to get to there.

The Caledonian Railway built another new line in 1864, to Leith. The station (often called the 'Caley Station') was at the junction of Lindsay Road and Ocean Drive, at the foot of North Junction Street. Passenger trains ran from there to Edinburgh Princes Street Station, beside the Caledonian Hotel. In our area there were stations at Newhaven Road (near Trinity Academy), Granton Road and East Pilton.

Passenger trains ran until 1962, and goods trains until 1968. In the last few years, steam engines had been replaced by diesel trains. This line is now a cycle path and walkway.