Some Early Lines
The Caley
Running from Brechin to Bridge of Dun, in rural Angus, is the Caledonian Railway (Brechin) Ltd., not a railway you here a great deal about, unlike the old Caledonian Railway with its beautiful, blue liveried engines, and a sprawling business empire of railway lines, hotels, ships, docks, harbours, locomotive workshops, and even a couple of canals. Sadly, the Caledonian also had the worst railway accident, in British railway history, happen on its Glasgow – Carlisle line, at Quintshill – it will be the centenary of this tragedy on May 22nd 2015.
The through route from London to Glasgow, the first through line between England and Scotland, utilising the Caledonian’s line from Carlisle, over Beattock, to Glasgow opened in 1849 and, in the same year, that railway institution ‘WH Smith’ – yes he of the bookstalls fame, began an experiment, sending London newspapers to Scotland on a specially hired train. The journey time was around 12 and a half hours, but it meant, that for the very first time, it was possible to print a newspaper in London and have it on sale, in Scotland, on the same day. This was the start of the national dailies, on sale at the local ‘news agents’ on every street corner, as you set off for work. It was the super fast broadband of the 19th century, ink, paper, the telegraph and railways, bringing you all the news, gossip and scandal they could dig up – not much change there then.
In the photograph, taken on a sunny Sunday afternoon, Kilmarnock built, Andrew Barclay 0-4-0ST is trundling through cornfields by the Arnbog road, between Bridge of Dun and Brechin, heading towards Brechin. Brechin has a rather special connection to those free wheelin’ biker types who ride Harley – Davidson. Davidson’s ancestors came from Aberlemno, just a stones through from Brechin, which hosts a Harley Davidson rally, in honour of the historic connection.
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This site is well worth a visit – I shall be back!
The Caledonian Railway (Brechin) Ltd is a private limited company formed by a group of steam railway enthusiasts, the Brechin Railway Preservation Society, with the object of operating a railway service on the former Caledonian Railway line between Brechin and Montrose, Angus, Scotland. This line was closed for passenger traffic during the early 1950s with final closure undertaken by British Rail in 1981.
The line has now been re-instated and preserved for around 4 miles (6.4 km) between Brechin railway station and Bridge of Dun railway station and since 1993 trains have run at weekends during the summer as well as on special occasions at other times of the year. The two railway stations have also been refurbished.
Although the line originally went all the way to Montrose, which is still a station on the main rail network, there are currently no immediate plans to link the Brechin line back into the main rail network, (as the section at Dubton through and onto Kinnaber Junction close to Montrose itself has now been redeveloped, making it difficult for the preserved railway to be reconnected to the national network at all).
However there is still hope of seeing the “CR Brechin” extended a further 3 1⁄2 miles (5.6 km) to Dubton, bringing it up to a total of 7 1⁄2 miles (12.1 km) in length. This is a long term aim which would only require the re-instatement of a short length of track.
Brechin City railway station, now home to the Caledonian Railway, a preserved railway.
24 January 2006 Source Geograph Dominic Dawn Harry and Jacob Paterson
This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic license. Attribution: Dominic Dawn Harry and Jacob Paterson
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