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WHEN is a short path not a short path? When it’s a lonning, perhaps. At least, that would be the Cumbrian answer to this riddle, according to old friend and colleague Alan Cleaver (aka @thelonningsguy), who’s become something of an expert on picturesque country lanes all over the Lake District. So much so that he … Continue reading Scenic landscape with a language all of its own → The post Scenic…
IT’S 1966 and the full impact of the Beeching cuts is being felt across the country, with the closure of dozens of rural branch lines. Just three years after Richard Beeching’s controversial first report on the reshaping of Britain’s railways, more than 2,000 route miles have already been closed. By the end of 1968 another … Continue reading Riverside railway with royal connections → The post…
THE railwaymania that engulfed the country in the 1840s meant that there was no shortage of ideas about different ways in which the Aberdeenshire market town of Alford could be added to the railway map. One proposal would have seen the Deeside Railway extended from its Banchory terminus north through Lumphanan and Cushnie to Alford. … Continue reading Rural railway built on granite foundations →…
IT’S the best part of a century since passenger trains ran into the Aberdeenshire village of Oldmeldrum, and perhaps it’s not so hard to understand why the service didn’t survive longer. The five-mile branch line from Inverurie on the Aberdeen to Inverness main line was seen as a way of revitalising the fortunes of what … Continue reading Last lingering remains of the ‘Meldrum train’ → The post…
PERHAPS it should come as no surprise that so few remnants can be found of the old branch line to Macduff. Meandering for almost 30 miles through rural Aberdeenshire towards the coast, it was dogged by financial challenges from its inception and the fishing and farming traffic its promoters dreamed of never materialised. Indeed the … Continue reading Fond memories of Macduff’s forgotten railway →…
Teddy's making slow, steady progess on the journey to adulthood The post Mellower moments on the long road to maturity first appeared on The Beyonder .
IMAGINE a railway line with stations so rural you can hear only birdsong and the bleating of sheep when you stand on the platform. Imagine a route with spectacular views over clifftops and picturesque fishing villages, with the shimmering North Sea stretching off to the distant horizon. For 80-odd years, such experiences were a reality … Continue reading Smell of steam and sea air on the Moray…
IT’S August 1975 and I’m standing on the platform of the dilapidated Banff station on the Moray coast surveying the remains of a once proud little terminus. I’m 17 and if I do take any pictures with my very unreliable camera, they have been long lost. But unbeknown to me, a fellow enthusiast arrived at … Continue reading Crumbling remnants of the branch line to Banff → The post Crumbling remnants…
IT WAS in the summer of 1974 that I discovered the appeal of exploring old railway stations and closed railway lines. Perhaps it was a timely transition from teenage trainspotter to railway historian, but the trigger was a glorious summer holiday exploring the railways of the Lake District with schoolfriends. Based in a small cottage … Continue reading Moray Coast line is gone, but not forgotten →…
I WASN’T to know it at the time, but when I travelled by train for my first day at secondary school in September 1968, I had missed the official end of steam on British Railways by only a matter of weeks. Within days, someone had introduced me to my first Ian Allan “combined volume” listing … Continue reading Steam graveyard where the dead came back to life → The post Steam graveyard where the…
