'What the Waverley Line meant to us'

What the Waverley Line meant to us

By John Ballantyne

8th October 2007

When I was asked to say something about “What the Waverley line meant to us” I wondered if I was the right person to do this. After all, the line was with us until the end of the 1960s and I was away from the village of Gorebridge for a good part of the time – especially during the 1950s and early 1960s.

Nevertheless, I do remember what life was like during the railway’s heyday – leading up to the Second World War and so, for those memories, you may get an inkling of what the line meant to Gorebridgers. I hope so anyway. But I’d like to apologise in advance, just in case the old memory gets one or two facts awry.

Most of you here will know that the line was extended from Dalhousie (South Esk junction) by the North British Railway company in 1846. That is over the Lothian Bridge, otherwise known as the Newbattle Viaduct, up through Newtongrange, Gorebridge and on to the Borders and eventually to Carlisle.

One of the North British Railway company’s goals was to create a third route between Scotland and London in competition with the Caledonian Railway (Glasgow-Euston west coast route) and to complement its own share of the east coast main line.

However the extended line did not get off to a good start owing to an incident which made the national press. Many navvies - Scots, English and Irish were employed to build the railway and two Irishmen were arrested, accused of stealing a watch from a pedlar in a local hostelry. A gang of their pals broke into and freed their colleagues from the Gorebridge police station.

Unfortunately the mob met two railway policemen and beat them up so severely that one, a constable, died from his injuries. A force of about two dozen police was sent from Edinburgh the next day but by this time the mob had dispersed.

News of the incident reached Scottish and English navvies who were working in the Dalhousie area and a group of several hundred of them decided to avenge the policeman’s death. The local police anticipated this move and requested help from Edinburgh, but they arrived too late to prevent the destruction of the Irishmen’s camp which was deserted by the time the mob reached it.

The help from Edinburgh included a troop of cavalry from Piershill barracks. The next day a group of about two hundred Irishmen set out to do battle with the other navvies but were intercepted by the cavalry who persuaded them to return to work peacefully. The dragoons remained for a time, but no further incidents took place. As far as I know, I don’t think anyone was ever charged with the murder of the poor policeman, who is buried in Borthwick church yard.

But, moving on, the coming of the railway brought great benefits to this area, especially for the coal industry. It made for quicker and cheaper access to Edinburgh markets and beyond. And not only for coal, of course. It also brought an increase in employment.

Coal and gunpowder were the two main industries in Gorebridge in the latter half of the 19th century, and we must not overlook gunpowder. This remained an important part of Gorebridge’s economy at the time of the coming of the railway. So much so that two tunnels were built just beyond the station to prevent any sparks from the trains accidentally reaching the powder magazine at Ashbank.

In the late 1920s and early 1930s my mother used to take us into Edinburgh on Saturdays to visit our grandparents. It was probably a cheap fare on a Saturday. I cannot remember the adult fare but as boys, if we traveled on our own, the child’s fare was six and a half pence return (old money) but if we walked to Newtongrange (which we often did) it was only four and half pence.

It was very exciting for us to travel by train. Especially the Sunday school trips by rail, nearly always over the Forth Bridge to places like Aberdour, Burntisland and Dysart. It was a great thrill crossing the bridge. (We all remember the first ‘39 Steps’ film). It is supposed to be lucky to toss coins out when crossing the bridge. Not much chance of that on a Gorebridge outing – where even knives and forks were regarded as jewelry – indeed they still are!

But, let’s return to the Saturday visits.

We always seemed to be returning home when it was dark. As the train pulled out of Waverley Station heading east we looked up to the Old Calton Jail, a grim looking place, blackened by railway soot and with no lights showing. I think it was all bread and water in those days.

Then through the tunnel to Abbey Hill, Piershill, Portobello and so on … great stuff.

The trains had a certain aura about them. There was the smell from the sparks and smoke coming back from the engine. No corridors in the third class part – perhaps first class had! But there were nice coloured pictures of mainly English seaside resorts below the luggage rack. There were also Granny’s chocolates.

Our Edinburgh granny was a bit of an old grump and no wonder, I suppose, having to put up with two rowdies. Anyway one Saturday evening, she surprised us by producing from her linen cupboard a huge box of chocolates for us to eat on the journey home. We could hardly wait to get on the train for the journey home. Alas, not a happy ending. Every chocolate, and we tried them all, tasted of camphor (which was used in those days as a moth repellant) and all the chocs went out the window – what a let down!

The late train back from Edinburgh was in those days called the Globe train and I have here an article written by Margaret McLean, who used to stay above David Gibb’s shop in the Main Street.

The Globe Train

Thos. R. Thomas had some airy fairy notion that the name came from an optical illusion created by the changing position of the moon as the last train on Saturday swept past St. Margaret’s depot, Millerhill, and onto Gorebridge, but the true facts are more substantial.

A retired clerk, aged 92 in 1976, spent many holidays in Barbara Stevenson’s house in Gorebridge, and recalled that it was the ticket collector at Waverley Station who christened it the ‘Globe Train’ because so many of its passengers scrambled down the steps from Market Street at the last minute laden with the bargains they had bought in the Globe provision shops in Jeffrey Street and Market Street, owned by Farquhar & Tarrell, multiple shop owners, who always had a large globe hanging above the entrance to their shops which were called Globe Markets.

This firm bought up whole shipments of damaged fruit and other foods likely to go off quickly and sold them cheaply in all their shops. On Saturday afternoon and evening, Market Street was congested with stalls and barrows doing a roaring trade and the Globe shops opened up the whole of their front windows and pushed out barrows, reducing the price of the perishable foods progressively as the evening wore on.

The canny country folk hung on as the prices dropped lower and lower and then when the goods were almost at giveaway prices, they grabbed their purchases and made a dash for the last train home to Abbeyhill, Millerhill, Eskbank, Newtongrange and Gorebridge, sometimes holding up the ticket collector by their lateness. One of the guards on the train came from Gorebridge. He was never short of fruit!

Farquhar & Tarrell opened a shop in Main Street, Gorebridge but only for a short time and Eric Mackay took over the shop about 1894. He retained the globe lamp above the door, and until the first Early Closing Act, he kept the shop open on Saturdays till the Globe train had arrived.

(Signed) Margaret Cochrane

The train was withdrawn some time before the First World War but Sir Henry Dundas and James Cochrane got up a petition and got the Globe Train restored for a time at least. It was still called the Globe Train in the 1930s.(Added by John Ballantyne)

My father told me about a memorable train journey he made in the early 1920s. Life was a bit hard in those days following the “war to end all wars” and like many other families at the time, my parents were hardly living in the lap of luxury. It was the early days of their marriage and my grandfather had given them £40 as a wedding present, with which they had bought a large dresser, a bedstead and very little else.

My father remembers that one Saturday morning they really reached rock bottom. They had less than ten shillings (50p) to their names. It was decided that my father would use part – a considerable part – of the 10/- to travel to Selkirk to take part in the Border games which were being held that afternoon (he was quite a good sprinter). He certainly was running for his money that day.

So, having changed at Galashiels, he found himself on the train to Selkirk. In the carriage was a young Gorebridge lad, Rob, who often trained with him in the evenings. They were discussing the afternoon’s races and father asked Rob which event he intended to compete in. None, as far as he my father could see. The only event for which Rob was eligible, the youths’ 100 yards sprint, was a “confined” race – which meant it was open only to lads from Selkirk and district. What a pity, thought my father. Rob was a good strong runner, and it was a bit galling to travel all that way and be unable to enter a single race.

As the train pulled into Lindean Station, just before Selkirk, my father had an idea. What if Rob entered the youth sprint saying he was from Lindean? The officials would perhaps query it if he said he was from Selkirk, but it was just possible that Lindean might fool them.

And so it turned out. Rob’s entry was accepted and he was given a mark of three yards (a small head start on some other competitors). There were five or six heats and Rob was in the third, which he easily won. In fact, he won it so easily that he was pulled back to ‘scratch’ for the final. The officials still had no suspicions that Rob was a ‘foreigner’.

It was still early afternoon and my father was going along nicely. He was through the heats of the sprints and felt he was in with a chance of success in the main event. The runners were now out for the final of the youths’ 100 yards and although he was running from scratch, Rob came through to breast the tape ahead of the rest.

Pleased as punch, Rob raced up to my dad to show him his prize – a gold watch. Father was very happy for him but quickly added a warning that he should get his gear together and board the three o’clock train home in case of any post-race enquiries.

As it turned out, this was good advice. Rob was hardly out of the ground when an official appeared asking for the winner of the youths’ 100 yards sprint to report to the judges’ marquee. This happened three times. No doubt somebody from Lindean who had told the officials Rob did not actually stay there. All in vain. Rob was already on his way home to Gorebridge, oblivious to the drama he had left behind!

Father, meantime was having a great afternoon. He won three events including the main sprint handicap. So the train journey home was a much happier trip than the outward bound journey. He returned, in triumph, to my mother “rolling in money” as he put it. He vowed never again to let them fall into such dire financial straits – and fortunately they never did.

This brings us onto Gorebridge station, which opened in 1847. Quite a hive of activity, as I remember, in the pre-war days.

In addition to the main double track running through, there were a couple of sidings and a loading platform in the station yard (just where the front doors of the eight, perhaps soon to be removed, houses stand). One saw coal being off-loaded for local coal merchants, who had a yard in the station. Each bag weighed 112lbs.

Sometimes cattle or sheep were loaded or off-loaded and many times we saw bullocks being driven away to local markets. The beasts sometimes managed to escape up to the main street before being rounded up – which caused great excitement. The cattle always appeared to race up the street on the opposite side from the butchers’ shops.

Gorebridge was then the terminus for many trains and the signalmen were kept very busy. The locomotives were uncoupled at the front, shunted onto the other track and then coupled to the rear carriage for the return to Waverley Station, tender first.

All this activity could be witnessed from the bottom of the Private Road where we had a grandstand view. The engines on the Waverley line had wonderful names – names to remember ¬– many of them from Sir Walter Scott’s Waverley novels. I remember seeing some of them: Madge Wildfire, Guy Mannering, Jeannie Deans, Ivanhoe, Heart of Midlothian. I’m not too happy about that last one – why not Hibernian! And I remember once seeing a more modern stream-lined engine called the Silver Link. What a beauty she was.

The North British Railway, then the largest railway company in Scotland, had become part of the London & North Eastern Railway (LNER) in 1923.

The London Midland Scottish (LMS) also used the line and we used tof see the express from London thundering through at 1.30pm each day on its way to Edinburgh. I think it was sometimes a Pullman train, calling at posh places like Harrogate. It had fancy carriages like they had on the Orient Express – curtains and all – so there was not much chance of that stopping at Gorebridge to pick up passengers.

There was a big cylindrical water tank near the loading bay which was much in use by the locomotives to replenish their water supplies. It was a long haul for train from Eskbank up through Gorebridge, Fushiebridge, Borthwick Bank, Tynehead and Heriot before leveling off on reaching Falahill at 880 feet above sea level. The steepness of the gradient meant an extra engine – known as the Hardengreen pilot – was sometimes needed at the rear.

Perhaps I should mention the steam coaches which were also in use. Coloured green and cream, these were not much longer than a normal carriage. I think they were used mainly for journeys requiring only a few passengers. We used to see them at around about midday.

I think the steam coaches made it possible for people working in Edinburgh – certainly people from Eskbank – to return home at lunchtime and return to work in the afternoon. It took only 24 minutes from Gorebridge to Waverley Station and even less on a limited stop.

The first train in the morning arrived at Gorebridge at 7am and was met by two porters who off-loaded goods from the guard’s van. They loaded the goods onto a bogey, to cross the line, and took them to the waiting room behind the ticket office at what is now Porter’s.

Goods could be collected or delivered by the railway lorry or by local carriers. The Williamsons also ran a taxi service; George Williamson told me he often used to meet trains to take visitors to Arniston House etc. In 1950, I paid just a few shillings to send a bicycle from Harwich to Gorebridge and it arrived home within three or four days.

Competing with the porters to meet the 7 o’clock in the morning train were the postmen, to collect the Royal Mail. There were six of them in those days: Guild, Fairgrieve, Smith, Docker, Conlan and I cannot remember number six!

How did they get down to the platform? They jumped over that wall over there, below the bank. You will find that it’s worn nice and smooth there and all the posties had shiny trousers – need I say more! They hauled the bags of mail up the steep banking and back over the wall. All to save going down through the yard, over the bridge and return.

I especially remember one lovely summer’s evening when a local couple, Andrew Black and his wife (she was Jane Melrose’s sister), emigrated to Australia. You could go for £10 in those days. They left the village on the evening train. I think the whole village, not a lot of people in those days, I suppose, turned out to give them a great send off. A lot of tears were shed.

The station was also the main haunt of perhaps the original train spotter – one Jack Marchbanks. He lived at the top of the main street and to say he was train daft is an understatement. He could be seen at any part of the day (he knew all the train times) running down the street onto the bridge there, just as the train puffed its way into the station.

He knew exactly where to stand, just high enough to avoid being shrouded in smoke from the engine but he still got his bonnet was blown off a few times. I’m sure it was disastrous for his lungs.

One summer someone, it may have been the station master, gave Jackie a weekly ticket to Edinburgh and he seemed to use it to the full – in and out of Waverley all week. He would wave like mad to his pals at work as he passed the Gore pit every two hours or so. We have all heard the story of the yokel who came back from Edinburgh saying it was covered with glass. I don’t think it was Jackie, but it could have been.

I’ve already mentioned the two station porters.

There were also three signalmen. The signal box was just below the bank there and I believe some of the levers and apparatus for working the signals and moving the rails when shunting are now in a museum – which one I don’t know. There was also a squad of locals (Jock Pringle was one) who worked on the railway, inspecting and repairing where necessary.

The station master lived in the flat above what is now Porter’s, and we must not forget the bungalow to the right. That was built for the station master at Fushiebridge. He traveled up to Fushie on the 7 o’clock mail train each morning.

I used to work beside a chap, John Gordon, who was then in his sixties. He confided to me that his father had been the ‘big cheese’ (station master) at Fushiebridge and he, John, had spent part of a misspent youth in a Gorebridge billiard hall playing with the likes of Arthur Lawler and others.

Fushiebridge was also a busy station in those days, dealing with coal from Vogrie pit by rail on one side, lime from Esperston by rail on the other and flour and other produce from Catcune Mill to the granary in the centre.

And a mile further up the line was another well known spot: Borthwick Bank or ‘Birky Bank’ as it was called. It was an open rubbish tip, not a nice place to be at all. It had smoke swirling from it and was overrun with rats from time to time. They used to gas them to get rid of them. The rubbish was brought in wagons from Edinburgh and perhaps even further afield.

There was a signal box there to control the shunting from the main line which brings me to two of the signalmen – Messrs Bertram and Firman.

They obviously had quite a bit of spare time on their hands because they had a side line – not quite manufacturing bicycles, but putting them together. I thought it must have been from kits, but it was more likely to have been from bits of old bicycles they recycled from the dump. They did quite well anyway.

Firman became a newsagent in the Main Street (later Arthur Nicol’s) and Bertram had a garage of sorts on the site of what is now Station Garage. Birky Bank is all overgrown now but it is said that a fortune lies underneath there, old chemists’ bottles, lemonade bottles with the wire and rubber stoppers etc. as well as all the sleepers.

A lot of pleasant memories remain from the good old days of steam, although it does seem a long time ago.

Steam gave way to diesel of course. My son Fred remembers looking down at the line (it must have been in the 1960s) it was dusk and there was very, very little traffic on the line then. A train from the South drew slowly in to the station, and the engine’s wheels appeared to be on fire. They looked just like firework Catherine wheels as it slowly ground to a halt.

Fred said there was a lot of shouting going on. The driver jumped down from his cab, had a quick look, got in again and reappeared with a fire extinguisher with which he doused all the wheels and put the fire out and was soon on his merry way. It was diesel that had been leaking onto the wheels – couldn’t have happened with steam! And Fred saw all this drama for free from the wall along there.

The Waverley Line was gradually running down. It was closed to goods on 28th December 1964 and Gorebridge became an unmanned station from 5th November 1967 before finally closing on 6th January 1969. I suppose if coal had still been king, it would have been a different story, but all the pits had gone and the Beeching Act had come into force.

Perhaps I was fortunate in being one of the last to use the railway in 1967-68. I was based in George Street in Edinburgh and used to travel on the 8.02am train from the Borders. As I have said, the station was unmanned then, and we used to have to find the guard on the train to purchase tickets – four shillings and four pence return (in old money) as far as I recall. If he was up in the first class carriages, he didn’t seem to mind if you just perched there. All very comfortable and into Waverley station by 8.30am.

Alas, it was soon to close.

The bridge was dismantled but some of the station signs can still be seen on the walls of Gorebridge houses today – ‘Cross the line by the bridge only’. I became the heir to the waiting room map – a big red arrow pointing to ‘you are here’. I have passed this onto the history society.

The last act was the lifting of the railway track and today only the Porter’s building and the Fushie stationmaster’s bungalow remain. But perhaps new, exciting times for the Waverley Line are now in the offing – as we are about to hear.

Note: This is an edited transcript of a talk given by John Ballantyne at the annual general meeting of the Gorebridge Community Development Trust on October 8th, 2007.

For more on the history of the Waverley Line visit
http://www.wrha.org.uk/history.html