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LOCAL TRANSPORT FOR A CONGESTED CAPITAL: ACTION GROUP CALLS FOR RE-OPENING OF EDINBURGH'S ABBEYHILL STATION
Meeting on Edinburgh Glasgow Improvement Programme and Abbeyhill
Presentations by Network Rail and Capital Rail Action Group
London Road Church Hall (top of Easter Road), Wednesday 2nd November 2011, 7.30 p.m.
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Laughable, its a 15 min walk tops...
DaveC - what is laughable is that Network Rail are putting in all the infrastructure to allow for the re-opening of a station and trains will wait at the potential station site. The only thing missing is an actual station - a very small additional cost in this huge project.
"The only thing missing is an actual station"
Previous one was part built on and the rest torched.
Do you know where the access would be for a new one?
Laughable, its a 15 min walk tops...
One could say the same of Waverley/Haymarket. Or indeed Slateford/Kingsknowe/Wester Hailes, all of which are 15/20 mins walk from each other. Likewise South Gyle/Edinburgh Park. Or Brunstane/Newcraighall/Musselburgh. Nobody seems to find those stations 'laughable' yet they are all closer to each other (as the crow flies) than Abbeyhill is to Waverley.
Previous one was part built on and the rest torched.
Do you know where the access would be for a new one?
Either the existing access gate on Abbey Lane (fully wheelchair accessible) or renovation of access ramps on north side of London Road. Or they could cut a hole in the stonework of the bridge on the south side of London Road and provide stairs/ramps there.
Access option 1:
Access option 2:
Access option 3:
Abbeyhill has a couple of problems.
It was built as an intermediate stop on the way to Leith Central and Trinity / Granton, but it's a dead end now.
You could leave it as a dead end, but that would preclude access for trains running from the east (North Berwick / Dunbar / Brunstane and in future the Borders). It is in no way practical to bring trains to a halt on the ECML approach to Waverley to then reverse them back into Abbeyhill. That is just never going to happen and I think rail regulations possibly even preclude such a dangerous manoeuvre. So you could extend trains running from the west through Waverley and terminate at Abbeyhill? But there is limited through capacity at Waverley, as the bulk of platforms are blocked by the central ticket concourse. It isn't viable therefore to run many (if any) trains originating in the west to it.
So the "obvious" solution is not to use it as a dead-end and would be to reconnect the loop under the road, and back onto the East Coast Mainline. The remains of this line are singled and signalled as a single block for the "binliner" trains. You would therefore need to pay for the line to be doubled, to be resignalled for diverting trains from east off of ECML through Abbeyhill before they reach Waverley and you would also need to electrify it if you wanted North Berwick trains to be able to access.
Alas in practice to my mind it seems quite a bit more complex and a great deal more expensive than simply popping a couple of platforms and some access in at Abbeyhill.
In my personal point of view, an intermediate station directly on the ECML might be more useful, there is plenty of space at Craigentinny or site of old Portobello station.
They are reinstating the track at Abbeyhill in any case, and trains will be "stopping" there. Effectively Abbeyhill will be the final destination or starting point for certain services, rather as Newcraighall is. It's obviously to do with West coast services and freeing up capacity at Waverley. Which services are likely to be "parked" at Abbeyhill waiting for a slot at Waverley? Fife circle? Bathgate line? Dunblane?
So then why not provide a platform and take on passengers if the trains are going to be at Abbeyhill anyway? At a modest additional cost you can enhance services. What's not to like?
Appologies crowriver. When I looked at google earth I assumed you meant The platform on the elevated stretch opposite the Honda dealership not round the corner on London Road.
Which services are likely to be "parked" at Abbeyhill waiting for a slot at Waverley? Fife circle? Bathgate line? Dunblane?
No idea as yet. I assume it won't be Glasgow QS-type services as these generally appear at Waverley then dissapear again, no need or time to send them off to Abbeyhill to wait about. It may also be somewhere to park the additional capacity required for when timetables shift between lower and higher frequencies. Who knows.
Of course BR sold off masses of old goods sidings around Waverley in the 80s that have now all been built on (or turned into car park!)
505 service unavailable.... Anyone else getting this?
As far as I am aware, the Abbeyhill turnback siding will be double track and electrified and will extend just past the London Road bridge. It will be used by trains from the west, primarily at peak times but could be accessible all day. The purpose of the development being to clear the Waverley through platforms at their busiest time of day.
The re-opening of a station is apparently technically feasible, although fleet availability and timetabling of services are likely to be tricky to resolve due to the reasons mentioned by Kaputnik. The main barrier at present is that there are no funds allocated for the development of a station as it is not part of the Edinburgh Glasgow Improvement Programme. Any funding for the scheme would have to come from Transport Scotland - unlikely.
With nice pic of how station used to be.
And here's how it looked in 2004:
I think the rail industry is 'lucky' that any of the track bed is still in railway ownership.
The British Rail Property Board (I think - EDIT this - http://www.brbr.co.uk) tried to sell the land a few years ago. Rail campaigners got it stopped because of 'possible future use'.
This continued ownership makes it more difficult/expensive to get a walk/cycle route between the Meadowbank retail thing and the Lochend Butterfly housing.
some views from 2005 on a rubbishy old 3.1MP camera;
Abbeyhill Station - same view as Arellcat's, but from opposite side of the fence.
London Road Junction
London Road Junction
"rubbishy old 3.1MP camera;"
That's luxury!
My first digital camera was 0.3
Sorry I meant 1.3...
Do any of you enthusiasts of the rails have any material pertaining to the old station at Colinton.
I would love some pics of it to see how it was seeing as i ride along the old track all the time!
Also... when the path joins the canal over the lanark road... where would the rail line have gone in its day? Was it over the road on a bridge that is no longer there?
@thebikechain
The single line crossed the Lanark Road roughly where the current footbridge is, but on a different alignment. I believe the bridge was removed as it was low and narrow and this was the cheap way to increase the size of the road. The rail line curved tightly to the east after it crossed the road, across the canal and ran then ran parallel to the current railway (Caledonian mainline) joining at Balerno Junction, which was right before where the railway runs across the viaduct. There were sidings here too to hold local traffic before it could be allowed onto the mainline.
Ah! very cool. I am going to investigate the path that led up to the bridge top in the black and white (non sepia) photo. Always looked kinda rideable.
@tbc - decent map here...
http://www.edinphoto.org.uk/1_MAP/1_map_edinburgh_1955_sw_1536.htm#map
and here
http://www.edinphoto.org.uk/1_MAP/1_map_edinburgh_1940_juniper_green_+_colinton_1536.htm#map
When I was in th TA at Lanark Road Bks, we would walk up to the playing frilds for exercise and then jog down over the old line on a foot bridge which leads to Boags Mill (on the map0, by the river. The bridge is still there. Is ths the one you mean?
@thebikechain @druidh I have long pored over the site but never noticed this photo which shows the track crossing the canal. Taken in 1964, the canal is so overgrown you can't even see the towpath. At least that's one change there has been for the better. There's also a couple of colour photos of Balerno and Colinton stations from the olden days (although long after passenger trains stopped in 1943)
Interesting to (not) see the towpath.
There's also a chimney!
Suspect it's at Inglis Green.
In fact there are 2! You can see a smaller one peeping out to the left. Marked on 1949 map for a tweed mill and a dye works at Inglis Green.
Some really interesting photos for me as several of them look like they are at the bottom of my garden before they built the school and indeed fenced in the scrubland on either side of the path where the track used to be. Scrubland that is the bottom of my garden now.
I have pointed out to various people before that just as you come in to Balerno [heading west] on the right hand side - [in Spring just beyond the multitude of daffodils] you can see a low wall. This is actually the top of the bridge over the siding which looped the branch line down onto the Carstairs track.
Caledonian Hotel used to have Platform Jazz in the pub on the road into Rutland Sq, A nod to the Caledonian Railway route ending there.
@Gembo if you look at the 1914 1:2500 OS Map it is still fenced-in scrubland on the banking down to the goods station at bottom of your garden.
Passenger station was to the north of the road on the continuation of the loop to re-join the mainline. It ran in a cutting under where the main road is now with the over-kill crash barrier between road and pavement. The road at the time had a noticeable kink in it and was parallel to the fence line beyond the little grassy space / daffodil patch. Obviously filled the cutting in to re-align the road.
The little cottage there was the station house.
Apparently the good people of Balerno didn't like the location of the station at the top of the hill there. They would rather it had been underneath where the high-school is, closer to the pub centre of the village.
I was walking over the Lanark Road "flyover" today and noticed that part of the railway alignment is still visible between the canal and the pavement (on the right heading out of town).
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