Nancy Jardine Author: R is for Railways -April A to Z Blog Challenge!

R is for Railways

My April A to Z Blog Challenge continues and today's post is about railway development...which eventually makes travelling easier for the characters in my current Ocelot Press writing set in Victorian Scotland.

The building of railways to transport passengers and goods was a considerable improvement in many parts of Scotland, especially for those outside the central belt corridor. Though, many of the railways were developed in very measured stages.

Some areas of Scotland were slow to cross by road, especially those regions surrounded by substantial hills, mountains, or lochs. Often, it meant long treks around the obstacles which caused extensive delays when the weather was poor, and road conditions impossible for coach travel.

As industrialisation developed, mainly around the major cities, the need to transport goods efficiently across Scotland, and beyond, became especially important. It was long known that transporting by water could be more effective than by road, but not all Scottish rivers were suitable for this. By the end of the 1700s, some canals had been created to connect major cities with market towns. These canals were less affected by adverse weather conditions, but the barge transportation was often a very sluggish process. Time was lost when sluice gates had to be opened to raise, or lower, the water levels of the locks in the canal. Horses trekking along the tow-paths, were used to pull the barges along – their possible speed dependent on the loads carried.

Technically, rail lines had been created around 1722 on the Tranent Waggonway, which ran from Tranent to Cockenzie, on the East Lothian coast. Wooden wagons, set upon a double-depth wooden track, left the Tranent pits filled with coal, and were pulled along by horses who walked between the wooden rails. They trundled down the hill, picking up speed as they crossed the fields on the 2 and 1/2 half mile journey to the salt pans at Cockenzie. There seems evidence for a brakeman who sat at the front, operating a lever which pressed against a wooden wheel to slow down the wagons as they hurtled round curves and bends. The skill of the brakeman was impressive, his task to keep the momentum going till it reached the off-loading point at Port Seaton Harbour, at which point he couldn’t afford to stop short, and he definitely couldn’t go too far, either! The person out front who led the horses was also well-practised along the route.

There were at least three phases of use of the track, since the wood deteriorated before a decade had passed and needed to be replaced, the gauge between the tracks changing over time from over three feet to accommodate wider wagons of almost 4 feet.

None of these narrow-gauge track-widths at Tranent were what was adopted almost a century later when metal tracks were laid by engineers like George Stephenson, at the standard of 4 ft 8 1/2 inches. That odd size, adopted in the late Georgian era, was a legacy from Ancient Roman roads. Legend has it that the earliest rail tracks were laid at the same width between the wheels as the Romans had on their carriages and wagons. The ancient 'straight' roads in England and Wales (attributed to Roman builders) were used as a guide for the distance between wheel rims, the ruts in those ancient stone roads used to gauge the width of the Roman vehicles that used the roads.

The video below tells the story of Tranent Waggonway (slightly differently perhaps?) and gives a great visual impression of how the waggonway operated. Period dress is a useful guide, too!

Railways began to be laid in Scotland to transport goods over cast iron tracks, mainly carrying coal in hoppers from pits to delivery points for industrial and household use, though these wagons were also initially horse-driven. An example would be the railway line established in Ayrshire to carry coal from the Kilmarnock pits to the sea-going harbour at Troon.

The iron rail tracks had to be laid over suitable terrain, within certain elevations for the efficiency of pull, but within a few years the horses were replaced by steam engines. Wagons and carriages could then travel much more quickly on the tracks. During the first half of the 19th century, civil engineers across Britain like Richard Trevithick and George Stephenson, gradually developed steam power for use on railways to transport goods, and then for passenger transport.

Railways supplanted some of the existing canal systems. An example of this would be the Aberdeenshire Canal which only lasted a short duration of almost 50 years, linking Aberdeen with Port Elphinstone, near Inverurie (roughly 20 miles). After the canal was no longer financially viable, some parts of its straight lines were drained, filled in, and rail tracks laid on top in the mid-1850s.

However, it wasn’t a simple process to lay a new railway from a point A to point B, even when the finance was raised and available. During the 1830s and 1840s, there were many different rail companies being formed across the UK who were gathering funds to create stretches of railway. This set up quite a degree of competition, however, their building operations were controlled by Acts of Parliament.

I'm finding it confusing to research which was the very first dedicated passenger railway to operate in Scotland. Thankfully, for my current writing, I’m most interested in when the railways appeared across Fife and Eastern Scotland, but as with many other developments, it’s the countryside that tends to get the improvements last of all.

Because of the need to regulate railway building across the UK, and the insistence of following edicts laid down by Acts of Parliament, it was sometimes years between the conception of a rail link and its actual opening.

The main line railway between Edinburgh and Glasgow today (2023) runs partly on the same bed as the one conceived in 1838. Opened to passenger traffic on 21 February 1842, the Edinburgh and Glasgow Railway ran between Glasgow Queen Street railway station (also called Dundas Street in the Victorian era) and Haymarket railway station in Edinburgh. Stations along the track outside the greater city areas were, Polmont, Falkirk, Castlecary, Croy, Kirkintilloch (later to be named Lenzie) and Bishopbriggs. Cowlairs Junction also had a ticket platform.

In the five years following its opening, the line was extended from Haymarket to Waverley Station in the city centre of Edinburgh when the lines and tunnels were constructed across what had been the Nor’loch below Edinburgh Castle, the land below the castle at that time still being developed into Princes Street Gardens. By 1850, the Edinburgh and Glasgow Railway Company needed 58 locomotives and 216 coaches to handle the traffic, the use of the trains much out-stripping the original estimates. Goods traffic also increased, enhancing the viability of the lines.

The Scottish Central Railway company was formed in 1845. This linked Perth and Stirling, serving the Central Scotland area, and joined the Edinburgh and Glasgow Railway near Castlecary.

Railways serving the Kinross-Shire and Fife areas were slower to appear, and seemed to be built piecemeal.

Kinross, due to its geographical site rather than its own volume of industry, was chosen to be a focal point where three different train company lines would meet. By 1850, a line was laid by the Edinburgh, Perth, and Dundee Railway (this line eventually included two ferry crossings over the Forth and the Tay estuaries). A second line was laid to Kinross by the Scottish Central Railway from Perth, and the third was the Stirling and Dunfermline Railway.

All was not simple though, and construction delays happened due to disagreements between the different companies. By the time there was a junction point at Kinross (closer to Milnathort itself) in 1857, it was some six years after my character had left Milnathort to work in Edinburgh. She had no money for train travel when she left at almost thirteen years of age in 1851, but I can declare that she'll be travelling by trains from Edinburgh to Dundee, to Aberdeen and even further north, during the decade that follows as her story unfolds!