^{North British Railway Study Group Journal No. 144}

NBR ‘Atlantic’ as LNER No. 9876 Waverley and train passing under the Hope Lane bridge, with Portobello East signal box on its gantry immediately beyond in June 1932. (G R Griggs Collection, via W Hennigan)

Editorial. 3

Staff at St. Andrews station circa 1910. 3
Photograph of nine members, only three  of whom wearing company caps.

Euan Cameron. The Wheatley ‘Ferry Pilots’ 4
For this issue’s locomotive article, we return to the tank engines of Thomas Wheatley, the larger examples of which were covered in issues 137/8. Here, however, we are concerned with some of the smallest engines to emerge from Cowlairs during Wheatley’s superintendency. They were not quite the very smallest – that ‘honour’ belongs to two tiny 0-4-0STs built in 1872 – but they were clearly designed for dock shunting in locations where sharp radius curves abounded and a short wheelbase was essential. These six locomotives were known as the ‘Ferry Pilots’ because they shunted traffic associated with the train ferries which ran from Granton to Burntisland from 1850 until the opening of the Forth Bridge in 1890. These engines were the subject of one of the earliest locomotive articles in this Journal, which appeared in pp. 8-9 of Issue No. 25 and was written by the late J. F. McEwan, a remarkable authority on locomotive matters in the early years of the Study Group. This article draws on his earlier piece to some extent, though it is not possible for me to agree with Mr McEwan’s findings in all respects. What were the ‘Ferry Pilots’ used for? First, one must address the issue of how the engines worked in connection with the train ferries, operated initially by the Edinburgh, Perth and Dundee Railway, and subsequently by the NBR. The ferries were fitted with four rails for the conveyance of wagons across the Forth, the first service of its kind in the world. Wagons were moved on to the ferries by means of ‘flying bridges’ (as the designer, a young Thomas Bouch, described them) which could be rolled up and down slipways according to the state of the tide, and which comprised a hinged portion or ‘bascule’ which could be swung on to the decks of the ferries, bridging the gap between the slips and the ferry required by the steamer’s draught. The system is well illustrated by an engraving published in the Illustrated London News

Jim Summers. Modelling models of the ‘Ferry Pilots’. 10
The model of No. 32 at work in the goods yard. Note the model of a Wheatley 0-4-0 in the background. Photographs: Jim Summers

Allan Goodwillie. Modelling models of the ‘Ferry Pilots’.
Further picture of the model of No. 32, this time near the dockside. The building behind the locomotive represents the engine house for the winding gear operating the winch down to the ferry, for which the apparatus is seen at the left. Below: No. 144 with a ‘period’ brake van and rolling stock. Photographs: Jim Summers
An early photograph of No. 42 and No. 80A in the station between turns. At this time the layout only had the station and backscene, which proved temporary as the model developed. Both engines have been very reliable over the years. No. 80A appeared as a box of bits which Pete Westwater had prepared. I used some of these and added much of my own, but was thankful to be given them just the same as it allowed for the engine to be built much quicker again the engine is in Hurst period colours, probably to be repainted at a later date. Photograph: Bill Roberton Modelling No. 42 moves a rake of early Hurst period stock (Rodger Pedrick’s) alongside Rodger and Jim Pugh’s later Drummond stock. Photograph and steam effects: Allan Goodwillie No. 42 alongside John Wall’s ‘Diver’ - both engines good runners from the start and both in the wrong period livery for the 1883 date. The print I sent to John was completely different in its colouration, so I was surprised to see it appear in its almost yellow shade, which is probably wrong even for the earlier Hurst period. They do both look splendid nonetheless. Photograph: Bill Roberton

Grant Cullen. The North British and the Great War: Part 4. 14-21
In August 1914 many believed that the war would be ‘Over by Christmas’, and this opinion was widely shared across Europe. It seemed at that time that only Lord Kitchener, Secretary of State for War, foresaw the war being long drawn out and costly, both fiscally and in numbers of casualties. The Board of the North British too, were swept along by this tide of optimism in the country and made a decision in October 1914 to place an order with A & J Inglis of Pointhouse Shipyard for the construction of a new paddle steamer capable of 18 knots and operations in the open seas around the Scottish Coast, rather than just the Firths. This ship which the NBR intended to name the Duchess of Buccleuch was acquired by the Admiralty whilst still under construction, retaining its name with the prefix ‘HMS’ added. This ship went on to serve with the Auxiliary Patrol as a minesweeper. The Auxiliary Patrol was an early attempt by the Royal Navy to counter the menace of German submarines in the North Sea. The Duchess never entered revenue earning service with the NB, being laid up in Wales after the war before scrapping in 1923.
Another NB ship ordered after the start of the war from Inglis was the Fair Maid which was also requisitioned by the Navy and converted to a minesweeper whilst still under construction at Pointhouse Shipyard. Launched in December 1915, eleven months later on 9 November 1916 as HMS Fair Maid she was mined and sank close to Cross Sand Buoy, Harwich, with the loss of four crew members. Some reports say that five lives were lost, but the Commonwealth War Graves Commission reference to four is quoted here. The men are commemorated on the Chatham Memorial to the Missing at Sea.
Other NB ships saw war service, including PS Lord Morton, sold to the Admiralty in April 1918, PS Edinburgh Castle sold to the Admiralty April 1918, and PS Redgauntlet which was converted to a minesweeper in 1914 and served as such until 1917. PS Talisman was a minesweeper from 1915 to 1919; PS Kenilworth from 1914 to 1919 and PS Waverley (III) from 1915 to 1920. Waverley passed to the LNER in 1923 and was subsequently sunk during the evacuation of the BEF at Dunkirk in 1940. PS Marmion was a minesweeper from 1915 to 1918. Eventually, as ships were requisitioned for war service by the Admiralty, only the PS Lucy Ashton and the PS Dandie Dinmont remained to provide a much-reduced NBR service on the Firth of Clyde. All Firth of Forth steamer excursions were stopped upon the outbreak of war and the Forth became restricted to military shipping. Strangely, the PS Empress which had been acquired by the NBR in 1888 whilst being built for service on Loch Lomond was taken into Admiralty control for just one week from 3 to 12 February 1919. Why and for what purpose? That we will never know. In total 30 Clyde steamers from the NBR, the Caledonian and the Glasgow and South Western went to war.
Pooling of Wagons
With the creation in June 1915 of the Ministry of Munitions, there had arisen the certainty of an enormous expansion in the transport demands to be made on the railway companies, and an even greater need was thus developed for ensuring the most efficient user of rolling and other railway stock. In this the NBR and the other Scottish companies were not found wanting.
For some years prior to the outbreak of the war the question of either a pooling or a common-user of railway wagons had attracted much attention among the Scottish railway companies particularly because Scotland seemed to constitute an especially favourable unit for the making of an experiment, and partly because of the reports as to the success of the German State Railways’ Wagon-Union, then pointed to as an example that might well be followed. Originally applied to the State Railways of Prussia, Oldenburg and Mecklenburg and the Imperial Railways of Alsace-Lorraine, the Wagon-Union had, since 1909, been extended to practically the whole of the railways in Germany, including company owned railways and light railways, all alike contributing wagons to, and receiving wagons from, a common stock, under a well organised system of control.
In 1911 the North British, together with the Caledonian Railway and the Glasgow and South Western Railway, sent a deputation to Germany to inquire into the working of Wagon-Union, but the conclusion then arrived at was that, although the Union had secured excellent results, a mere replication of it in Scotland would not be practicable, having regards to the comparatively large number of privately owned wagons. The whole matter was, nevertheless, still under consideration towards the end of 1915 when the Railway Executive Committee asked the controlled companies to consider the pooling of railway owned wagons in territorial districts, with a view to relieving the situation in regard to wagon supply, and suggested that Scotland as a whole might very well be regarded as a typical district for the purpose.
A series of conferences were held by the Scottish companies to consider what could be done and, although at that time the Highland and the Great North of Scotland thought the small number of wagons they themselves would be able to contribute rendered it undesirable that they should enter into the proposed arrangement, a common user agreement was entered into between the North British, the Caledonian and the GSWR. This came into operation in June 1916. Under this scheme, which operated in Scotland only, the total number of wagons made available by the three companies was 102,366. This ‘commonuser’ stock was not, however, to include, among goods wagons, 6-wheeled and 8-wheeled wagons and sixteen different kinds of special class wagons, or among mineral wagons those for coke, for pig iron, hopper wagons plated to carry more than 10 tons and NBR wagons lettered for certain firms. Nor was the common user to apply to cattle wagons or to covered wagons of any description, while out of the 49,000 furnished by the NBR, 6868 were to be for ‘local use’ only. In order to ensure the efficiency of the operation there was set up at the NBR offices in Glasgow – which offered the advantage of a central situation – a ‘Common User Wagon Office’, this being staffed by two clerks from each of the three companies. It was the duty of these clerks to summarise each morning the returns received from the various points bringing out the plus or the minus balance for or against each company and equate the balances accordingly. There was also formed, at the outset of the arrangement, a Control Committee which constituted by the Goods Managers and Superintendents of the three companies was to meet to settle any difficulties which might arise. The new arrangement worked with such success that its scope was extended and from 2 January 1917 the Highland and GNoS came in and it was further arranged that the scheme should be linked with similar common user arrangements with certain – particularly geographically adjoining – English companies. With respect to repairs to wagons under the conditions agreed to, only repairs of a simple character were to be undertaken off the owning company’s line. Wagons requiring extensive repairs were to be sent ‘home’ as usual. Despite strenuous efforts being made by the railway companies for inclusion, private owner wagons, or traders’ wagons, remained outside the pool. The owners had lobbied hard citing ‘difficulties’ of joining in and on 3 February, just before the proposed inclusion date of 5 February 1917, the Glasgow Herald reported that the Board of Trade had acceded to the traders wishes and deemed the scheme ‘impracticable’.
Within a few weeks of the adoption of common-user railway owned wagons, the conclusion was formed that a commonuser arrangement for wagon sheets and ropes must be adopted in parallel, but it was not until February 1917 that this was adopted nationwide for sheets and the end of July 1917 for ropes. In a large number of instances goods could not be sent in open wagons without a sheet or sheets to cover them. Under the new arrangements a railway wagon might be forwarded in any direction, but in continuance of the old regulations in regard to sheets, traffic sent on to the line of another company had to be covered with a sheet or sheets belonging to that company, while ‘foreign’ sheets were to be used only for traffic going to the company to which it belonged. So, on 20 February 1917 there was brought into operation a scheme for the common use of sheets under conditions as to checking and balancing practically identical with arrangements applying to railway owned wagons. No additional staff was required, the existing machinery being used for the purpose.
The NB possessed many hundreds of old dumb-buffered wagons which it had been getting rid of pre-war to scrap merchants for £8 each. Before two years of war exigencies had passed the same wagons were fetching £40 from collieries and factory owners with private sidings, and from the newly formed Ministry of Munitions. Two batches went to Greece for use by the Allied forces in the Salonika Campaign
Closure of Stations and Reductions in Passenger Services
In common with other railway companies, the North British found it necessary on account of the serious shortage of motive power and staff, coupled with the heavy and urgent demands made in respect of naval, military and food supplies traffic, to introduce reductions in ordinary civilian passenger services. During the course of 1915 all railway companies embarked upon a process of station closures, both to facilitate the traffic and to allow of more men to join the Colours. Among the railway companies there were four which by the early part of 1917 had each closed more than fifty of their stations, for one reason or another, since the beginning of the war. The North British was one of these having closed 60 stations. The other companies were the Caledonian (53), the London and North Western (55), and the Great Western (74). These figures were exclusive of many stations now closed on Sundays. Closures were made, wherever possible, where an alternative service was available by another railway company, or where the public could be served by tramways or omnibuses.
Some parts of the North British network benefited from the war. Crail for example, on the Anstruther & St. Andrews Railway, became something of a military centre for officers on leave and its hotels and boarding houses prospered. In 1915 the Balcomie Links Hotel was closed, due to the German proprietor being interned as an enemy alien. In the March 1916 timetable certain passenger train services were further curtailed and these included the first train of the day from Dundee to Crail, and the afternoon Edinburgh to Crail service which was cut short at Anstruther. After some lobbying by the inhabitants of Crail on behalf of pupils of Waid Academy who lived in Crail and who used the service to return home, they received a reply from FW Jackson, General Manager of the NBR, to the effect that the service was the best the company could provide with the resources presently at its command. However the company relented and in May announced that: ‘With a view to meet[ing] as far as possible the requirements of summer visitors to Crail, the Directors, unless some unforeseen circumstance should arise in the interval that would render this impractical, will adopt an increased service during the summer months when it is anticipated that the demand for goods and mineral traffic will not be so heavy as they are at present’. The restoration took place on 1 June and it was said that the avoidance of the ‘pleasure’ of a four mile walk from Anstruther to Crail was greatly appreciated by those Waid Academy scholars who lived in the latter town. By October, however, this concession had again been withdrawn. The result of these curtailments across the entire NBR system was that in 1918 the decrease in the number of ordinary passenger trains running compared with 1914 was nearly 45%.
To preserve some degree of ‘normality’ within the civilian population football competitions were kept going, although most clubs had lost players to the Armed Forces (see part 2 of this series with respect to Heart of Midlothian FC). At that time there was only a single division Scottish Football League which by 1917-18 was in its 28th season. Professional football below that was played on a regional basis from 1915. With station closures and a reduction in services even keeping football going was becoming increasingly difficult and the Coatbridge Express newspaper of Wednesday 17 January 1917 carried the following notice: ‘Three Lanarkshire clubs, Wishaw Thistle, Dykehead and Royal Albert, owing to the depletion of the train service, have agreed, meantime, to drop out of the Western League’. The Western League, had been formed on 28 July 1915 and consisted of six ex-Scottish League clubs (Abercorn, Albion Rovers, Arthurlie, Clydebank, Johnstone and Vale of Leven) and six non-League clubs, Dykehead, Renton, Royal Albert, Wishaw Thistle – all ex-Scottish Union – Stevenston United from the Scottish Reserve League and Dumbarton Harp.
Two months later, on 21 March 1917, the same newspaper reported that, for similar reasons, ‘The Scottish League are asking Aberdeen, Dundee and Raith Rovers to abstain from the League next season. There was some talk of having two sections, East and West, but this fell. The probable inclusion of Clydebank with the remaining seventeen will likely form next season’s list’. This did happen with Rangers winning the 1917-18 Championship with 56 points from 34 games, one point ahead of Celtic. The cities and towns of the clubs requested to stand down were all, of course served by the NBR.
Troop Traffic
As has previously been discussed the NBR played its part in the completeness with which the railway companies of Great Britain and Ireland had prepared for the mobilisation of the army whenever and under whatever conditions a national emergency might arise. On Sunday 16 August 1914, twelve days after the outbreak of the war, there passed through Waverley Station seventy trains from north of the Forth to destinations in southern England. From this time, for a period of nearly five years, the North British dealt with a continuous flow of troops, stores and armaments. The principal military training centres of the North British system were situated in Edinburgh, Glencorse, Peebles, Galashiels, Stobs, Hawick, Haddington, Berwick, North Berwick, Dunbar, Falkirk, Glasgow, Hamilton, Dumbarton, Inverkeithing, Kinghorn, Stirling, Tillicoultry, Kirkcaldy, Dunfermline, Kinross, Perth, Leven, Ladybank, Cupar, St. Andrews, Wormit, Dundee, Barry Links, Montrose and Aberdeen. From these centres were transported, in special and ordinary trains, 250,000 officers and men for service overseas, while the number undergoing training who were carried between different camps was 7,000,000 A very large leave traffic had to be provided for, by special and ordinary trains alike. It is estimated that arrivals and departures from Edinburgh Waverley Station, of officers and men, on leave, averaged 4000 daily. These were the ‘normal’ conditions; but there were times of abnormal pressure, as, for instance, when special leave was given to troops of the Home Commands at Christmas 1918 and New Year 1919. On these two occasions the numbers of officers and men who travelled by the NBR, in special or ordinary trains, attained a total of around 45,000. Great importance was naturally attached to the Forth and Tay Bridges, and these had to be protected by large garrisons which were stationed on both banks of the respective Firths, and in addition on several islands – a measure of precaution which meant still more traffic for the railway.
American Troops
When the United States of America through in its lot with the Allies in 1917 and her armies made ready to take the field against the Central Powers, several convoys arrived at Glasgow and special trains were run from docks on both sides of the River Clyde to ports in southern England. The trains run by the NBR were started from Prince’s Dock, one of the principal docks on the south side of the river, and travelled to Carlisle via Falkirk, the Edinburgh Suburban Line and the Waverley route.
The Military Embarkation Officer was in possession of the details concerning the men on board each ship some days before the transports arrived and, as a result of a meeting with the railway company’s operating officers, the troops were allocated in advance to particular special trains and to designated carriages in those trains. The trains were brought alongside the ships and before the troops were disembarked the military officers in charge of them were in possession of the number of the carriage and the number Operations of the train in which each man would be accommodated. Each train carried approximately 25 officers, 440 men, six nurses and ten tons of baggage. The trains were hauled by a single locomotive from Prince’s Dock to Niddrie West Junction, on the Edinburgh Suburban Line and from that point an additional engine was added on account of the heavy gradients on the Waverley route. Meals for the men were provided, generally at Carlisle or Crewe. Note. Acts of Parliament in 1891 and 1894 gave authorisation to build a line off the Govan branch to the Cessnock Dock then being planned by the Clyde Trustees. In June 1897 an agreement was made with the NBR so that they could participate in the construction and operation. The Clyde Navigation Act, 1899, vested the new line in the Joint Committee (CR & GSWR) from 9 August 1899. The line opened in 1903, retitled the Prince’s Dock Railway; it was heavily used by the NBR. Access to the NBR system north of the river was made by the City Union Line.
Naval Traffic
In regard to naval passenger traffic, special leave trains were run weekly between Rosyth, Invergordon, Thurso, or other naval bases in Scotland and Chatham, Portsmouth, Plymouth or other naval ports in England. The number of passengers conveyed by these trains over the North British system was 375,000. These figures are exclusive of the passengers who travelled by the Euston – Thurso Daily Naval Special which from 21 May 1917 to 30 April 1919 followed the North British Waverley route between Carlisle and Edinburgh, the use of ‘double heading’ being necessary to get the train over the heavy gradients.
These trains are commemorated with plaques at various stations along the route, including those on the former NBR system – Hawick (on the site of the old station now the Teviotdale Leisure Centre), Galashiels (at the new station), Edinburgh Waverley, where the plaque was unveiled on 30 April 2017 next to the NBR War Memorial boards in the station at the bottom of the stairs opposite platform 11. Moya McDonald was responsible for this commemorative project and was representing ‘Another Orkney Production’, which promotes all things Orcadian. At Inverkeithing a similar plaque was unveiled later that same day. Other plaques can be seen at other stations, for example on the Highland Railway section of the route. The winter 1917 timetable for these trains was as shown below. These trains came to be known as the Jellicoe Express after Admiral Sir John Jellicoe who was in charge of the Grand Fleet based at Scapa Flow. By the time the naval train service began he had been appointed First Sea Lord of the Admiralty, a post he held from November 1916 until January 1918. For many, however, these trains were called, unofficially, the ‘Misery Express’. The above figures are exclusive, also, of the passengers on the naval short leave trains run daily between Rosyth dockyard and Edinburgh and Dunfermline, and between Port Edgar and Edinburgh, the number so carried from and to Rosyth and Port Edgar averaging 2000 per day. These latter were provided for by a booked daily service of leave trains supplemented by special trains as the exigencies of the traffic demanded. In 1916 Port Edgar, just west of South Queensferry, was acquired by the Royal Navy who established a Torpedo Boat Destroyer Depot which could provide berthing and support for up to 52 destroyers. Complementary developments took place on shore including the creation of barracks, workshops, storehouses, a power generating station and recreation facilities. An oil fuel depot was also built. In 1917 this new destroyer base was officially named HMS Columbine. In 1918 the entire Grand Fleet was transferred from Scapa Flow to the Firth of Forth making Port Edgar a very busy place. Shortly after its purchase, in the aftermath of the Battle of Jutland in 1916, many of the dead and wounded were landed here. The base had rail access (opened in 1878) via the South Queensferry branch which connected with the main line at Dalmeny South Junction. Naval operations ceased at Port Edgar in 1975 and some rails embedded in the roadways of what is now a marina are the only remaining indication of what was once a busy railway terminus.
A detailed insight is given of how Port Edgar looked in these days, from this report written by the Superintendent Civil Engineer Rosyth in May 1916: ‘The area claimed by the North British Railway includes the roadway on the south side of the property. The road being theirs is repaired by them. At the south west corner a piece of land is occupied by Messrs Toppham Jones and Railton, in connection with their Admiralty contract for dredging under agreement with the North British Railway company. They also have a timber jetty which is being built close to the lighthouse. At the eastern end there is a temporary picture palace, and close adjoining it some wooden buildings used as a carpenter’s shop. In the vicinity of Echline Burn, there is a slaughterhouse used by the butchers of Queensferry. A creosote works belonging to the North British Railway is also in existence. A number of damaged rail trucks are stored on the railway line. Moored to the pier are three Galloway steamers. Also, the yacht Sheelah, belonging to Lady Beatty.’
The steam yacht Sheelah was privately owned by Admiral Sir David Beatty and his family. Admiral Beatty was the Commander of the Grand Fleet's Battle Cruiser Force at Rosyth. Beatty’s ships were shortly to take part in the foremost naval action of the First World War, the Battle of Jutland. The Sheelah had been offered to the Admiralty as a hospital ship, the cost of fitting her out being borne by Lady Beatty. The description goes on to say that the land immediately to the west of the breakwater would also be requisitioned. Two cottages are mentioned, both uninhabited, being in an unfit state. It was recommended that the whole of the land belonging to the North British Railway including the road and land to the west should be acquired under the terms of the DORA, so that the Admiralty would have complete control of the area. The railway company would retain the line east of the road bridge (within Port Edgar that is), and into South Queensferry goods station. A subsequent arrangement would be made for the NBR. To maintain and work the railway into Port Edgar. The extent of the area acquired was the whole of the Shore Road from its junction with Hopetoun Road (excepting the schoolhouse) in the east to its junction with Society Road, and beyond towards the Fisheries in the west.
Ambulance Trains
One of the naval ambulance trains which went regularly between various hospitals in Scotland and England made a weekly run with sick officers and men from Larbert (where there was a naval hospital), from Port Edgar (where sick and wounded were landed from ships) and from hospitals in and around Edinburgh to Portsmouth, Plymouth and Chatham. Altogether the number of trips made by naval ambulance trains over the North British system exceeded 1000.
Military ambulance trains conveyed sick and wounded soldiers from Dover or Southampton by either East Coast or the Waverley route for hospitals at Edinburgh and Bangour. The number of military ambulance trains which arrived from the south was close on 600. Bangour Hospital was situated at the end of a short branch off the Edinburgh and Bathgate Railway. The branch was opened in 1905, originally being funded by the Edinburgh and District Lunacy Board, but was used extensively for the treatment of military sick and casualties during the war. It is estimated that 3000 military casualties were treated at Bangour between 1916 and 1921. The Branch was closed in May 1921 when the hospital reverted to its original purpose. The hospital was used again by the War Office in the Second World War but was served by road. It closed for good in 2004. The line is commemorated by an artwork at Uphall close to where it diverged from the main line.
Aeroplane Depots
A number of Aeroplane Depots or Aerodromes were directly served by the NBR, including that situated at East Fortune in East Lothian which gained world-wide recognition as the starting point of airship R34 on 2 July 1919 when it made the first east-to-west crossing of the Atlantic by air, making landfall on Long Island, USA, on 6 July. Other bases served were at Gullane, Turnhouse, Aberdour, Donibristle, Crail, Leuchars, Dundee, Aberdeen and Montrose. To and from these centres there was a daily flow of officers and men, while trains with partially dismantled aeroplanes had frequently to be run when squadrons changed their quarters.
Montrose was the first operational military air base in the UK when it opened on 26 February 1913 upon the arrival of No. 2 Squadron Royal Flying Corps. It was originally situated at Upper Dysart Farm but that site proved unsuitable and the base was relocated to Broomfield Farm, north of the town in January 1914. The first pilot to land in France after the declaration of war in August 1914 was Lieutenant H.D. Harvey-Kelly of No. 2 Squadron RFC Montrose. He was followed by the remainder of the squadron before the end of that month. Montrose took on an important new role as a training base for pilots and it continued to be active throughout both world wars as a major centre for training pilots. In August 1914 the RFC had less than 100 aircraft. When the war ended in November 1918 the RAF had over 20,000 aircraft. Another of the squadron’s pilots, 2nd Lt. W B Rhodes-Moorhouse, became the first pilot to be awarded the Victoria Cross, awarded posthumously on 26 April 1915.
Passenger Traffic
Despite the closure of stations, reduction in services and an increase in fares, workmen’s trains, put on to serve wartime conditions, helped restore and increase the proportions of passenger traffic. The construction of the dockyard at Rosyth was still far from complete on the outbreak of the war, and twenty-four workmen’s trains per day, conveying between the dockyard station and Edinburgh, Dunfermline, Kirkcaldy etc., the workers who were still engaged thereon, were continued right up until the end of hostilities. Numerous workmen’s trains had also to be run on various parts of the system in connection with the setting up of aerodromes and munition works. The National Munitions Factory at Gretna was served off the Edinburgh and Carlisle mainline by a branch from Longtown, formerly the property of the NB but taken over for the purposes of the war as a Government railway. During the construction period, the NB provided special trains for the conveyance of workers between Longtown and Langholm, and also between Longtown and Carlisle; and when production at the factory commenced extra trains were put on to accommodate the munitions workers, the majority of whom were women. A 2 ft. narrow gauge military railway was used to move materials and supplies around the sites. The network, which had 125 miles of track, employed 34 engines. Electricity for the munitions manufacture and the townships was provided by a purpose-built coal-fired power station. The telephone exchange was handling up to 2.5 million calls in 1918.From September 1916 until October 1918 the NBR moved 70,000 tons of cordite explosives from the newly constructed sidings at Longtown In the West of Scotland workmen’s trains were run between Glasgow and various places along the banks of the Clyde and in the Vale of Leven in furtherance of the production of war materials or in new locations set up for the purpose. On 21 November 1902, the Stobs Estate was sold by Robert Purdon, a solicitor in Hawick, with the sale of the 3615 acres being recorded in several newspapers. The Southern Reporter of 11 October 1902 announced that ‘The British Government has purchased the ancient Border home of the Elliotts at Stobs Castle’. It goes on to add in the edition of 27 November 1902 that ‘The War Office is understood have decided to erect barracks on part of Stobs estate, and to maintain a permanent garrison there’. Initially this was a military camp for the training of men of the Territorial Force with a station, Stobs Camp, being opened on the Waverley Route on 25 August 1903, and sidings were created not long after. Around October 1914 the authorities let it be known that Stobs Camp was to be used for holding Prisoners of War and a £50,000 contract was placed for the construction of 200 wooden huts to house 6000 such men. By early 1915 this camp was holding prisoners to the full extent of its capacity. Thus German (and a few Austrians, Hungarians and Turks) made a substantial contribution to the total of passenger traffic carried by the NBR. The prisoners travelled to Stobs from the south in special trains and great numbers of them were afterwards dispersed throughout Scotland by special or ordinary trains to engage in such peaceful pursuits as quarrying, road-making, timber-felling, fruit picking and other farming activities. By the end of the war over 500,000 men had been dealt with on the North British in this way. In the latter stages of the war, the camp at Stobs was converted into a hospital camp for sick and wounded Germans, who were brought from France or Flanders to a southern port, and taken on by ambulance trains to Scotland. During the course of the war there passed over North British metals on several occasions, from various parts of the country en route for Leith or Aberdeen, special trains of, what were termed at the time ‘undesirable aliens’, civilians whose internment or even expulsion from the UK had been ordered. Some were returned to mainland Europe but many were interned on the Isle of Man, with those who were considered to present a real danger to the peace and security of the UK being sent to Canada. Legislation which allowed for the arrest, detention, internment or expulsion was enshrined in the Defence of the Realm Act. Unfortunately a number of innocent people were swept up in this, Germans and Austrians who had lived for many years in Britain created businesses and invested in the country – like the owner of the Balcomie Links Hotel in Crail, previously mentioned.
On 26 March 1915, the Glasgow Herald reported that the previous day a man with a camera was taken off the PS Talisman at Dunoon Pier and detained by the military authorities. The paper reported that he was in possession of an American passport! The US did not become a belligerent until 1917.
The Defence of the Realm Act (DORA) was passed in the United Kingdom on 8 August 1914, four days after it entered the First World War and was added to as the war progressed. It gave the government wide-ranging powers during the war, such as the power to requisition buildings or land needed for the war effort, or to make regulations creating criminal offences. DORA ushered in a variety of authoritarian soci a l control mechanisms, such as censorship: ‘No person shall by word of mouth or in writing spread reports likely to cause disaffection or alarm among any of His Majesty’s forces or among the civilian population’. Scottish anti-war activists, including John MacLean, Willie Gallacher and John William Muir, were sent to prison under the terms of this Act as well as Bertrand Russell, the philosopher.
The trivial peacetime activities no longer permitted included flying kites, starting bonfires, buying binoculars, feeding bread to wild animals, discussing naval and military matters or buying alcohol on public transport. Alcoholic drinks were watered down and pub opening times were restricted to noon–3pm and 6:30pm–9:30pm (the requirement for an afternoon gap in permitted hours lasted in England until the Licensing Act 1988). The law was designed to help prevent invasion and to keep morale at home high. It imposed censorship of journalism and of letters coming home from the front line. The press was subject to controls on reporting troop movements, numbers or any other operational information that could be exploited by the enemy. People who breached the regulations with intent to assist the enemy could be sentenced to death. Ten people were executed under the regulations. Though some provisions of DORA may seem strange, they did have their purposes. Flying a kite or lighting a bonfire could attract Zeppelins and, after rationing was introduced in 1918, feeding wild animals was considered a waste of food
Improvements and Additions
As the war progressed and it became evident that ever more demands would be placed upon the railway companies, changes in organisation had to be made to maintain and improve on the organisation of the NBR. As early as September 1914 traffic districts were revised and headquarters of each confirmed. Southern (Carlisle), Central (Edinburgh), Western (Glasgow), North Western (Glasgow), Fife (Burntisland) and Northern (Dundee). This was a re-arrangement made in conjunction with the extension of the train control system to the Western District, with its office at Coatbridge Central (NBR) from 18 October 1914, the Burntisland control office having opened two weeks earlier. Coatbridge Central (NBR) station was located just off West Canal Street in the town centre and its entrance can be seen in the picture dated August 1918 when a Mark IV (Male) tank ‘Julian’ No 113 visited the town raising funds for the war effort. Note. A ‘Male’ tank was armed with two cannons as its main armament, but a ‘female’ tank had Hotchkiss machine guns only.
This station was situated on part of the original Monkland and Kirkintilloch Railway. After closure in September 1951 the buildings were used by the local Branch of the Railway Staff Association as their Social Club until new purposebuilt premises were built adjacent to Coatbridge Sunnyside Station about a mile away. The line (singled) still exists for freight only as a chord connecting the Glasgow-Airdrie-Bathgate line – deviating south a few yards west of Coatbridge Sunnyside station, and connecting with the Motherwell-Perth main line at Whifflet Junction.
Other line improvements made during the wartime period included the opening of Rosyth Dockyard Station (1 July 1915); opening of the Lothian Lines from Portobello West to Monktonhall (30 September 1915); opening of the Meadows Junction-Seafield link (1916); extension of South Leith and Inverkeithing yards and laying out of Longtown Sources

Illustrations

Alan Simpson. West Fife Pits and the NBR: Part 10, Valleyfield Colliery. 22-31
Valleyfield colliery layed south-west of Dunfermline, on the Fife coast east of Culross between the villages of Torryburn, Newmills, and Culross. It was owned by the Fife Coal Co and was the most westerly of all of the FCC pits  until the sinking in the late 1930s of their Comrie colliery (which lay north-west of Oakley and to the south-west of Saline village). It was served by the NBR’s Kincardine & Dunfermline route

Douglas Yuill. The South Leith Branch: Part 1. 32-44
Some thirty or so years ago author enrolled for an adult evening class at Forrester High School, Corstorphine, Edinburgh, which was run under the auspices of Edinburgh District Council entitled ‘The History of Edinburgh’s Railways’. When he turned up on the first evening, the lecturer introduced himself as Sandy Maclean. Author wasn’t a member of the North British Railway Study Group at the time but his name was a familiar one being the author of North British Album, A Pictorial Record of LNER Constituent Signalling’ et al. Writer knew right away that the other class members and myself could expect an enthralling series of talks. We weren’t disappointed. Sandy not only delivered excellent presentations but produced copious notes to accompany each of his talks for every attendee and still treasures his copies! As members will know, sadly Sandy passed away in 2020 and although he deposited a bound copy of these notes on his researches into the NBR / LNER eras of Edinburgh railway history with the Scottish / Edinburgh Department at the Central Library on George IV Bridge, I believe that his meticulous researches and writings should be made available to a wider readership. With this in mind, I have endeavoured to compile the story of the NBR’s South Leith Branch based on Sandy’s notes and also my previous writings in the Journal between 2001 and 2004 entitled ‘Carrying Coals to Leith and Granton (the building of the Lothian Lines in Edinburgh and the surrounding district)’. As the two are inextricably linked some duplication in the story is inevitable but I hope that it won’t detract. In my previous articles I dealt in some detail with three Lothian railway Inquiries, the NBR Train Control System and the locomotive types which operated on the Lothian Lines hauling coal from the pits to Leith Docks so I won’t repeat the detail in this account of ‘A Leither’s History of the South Leith Branch of the NBR’ which I would like to dedicate to the memory of A A (Sandy) Maclean.
The Pioneer Railway The first railway to come to Leith opened throughout in 1838 and was a branch line almost 4 miles ling from the Edinburgh and Dalkeith Railway (E&DR) main line at Niddrie. The E&DR was a revival of Robert Stevenson’s earlier Edinburgh Railway scheme of 1817-1818 to move coal from the pits in Midlothian, mainly around Dalkeith, into Edinburgh. Stevenson surveyed four potential routes from Edinburgh and Leith and also ‘levelled’ a long line into East Lothian to terminate at Haddington, but the selection of routes offered by Stevenson made it difficult for the committee of coalowners to decide which one to select as some were more obviously favoured than others. So no decision was made and Stevenson’s report was rejected.
The next scheme to come into the public eye was in September 1824 and was entitled the Edinburgh and Dalkeith Railway. A report had been prepared earlier in the year, by John Grieve, engineer, the manager at Sheriffhall Colliery, near Dalkeith, for Sir John Hope of Pinkie, who had leased it from the Duke of Buccleuch and James McLaren, the Duke’s coal agent. A meeting was convened at the Royal A (Sandy) Maclean. Exchange Coffee House in Edinburgh (sited on the west side of the forecourt of the present City Chambers in the High Street) and it was decided to start parliamentary proceeding for a bill to build the railway. John Grieve was appointed engineer and James McLaren the company treasurer with Sir John Hope as Convenor. The requisite Parliamentary Notices duly appeared in the newspapers and these intimated that branches to Fisherrow and Leith would be included. The Bill was presented to Parliament on 15 February 1825 but there was opposition from local landowners John Don Wauchope of Edmonstone and Sir Robert Dick of Prestonfield. Opposition for the scheme was led in Parliament by Sir Ronald Ferguson, MP for Fife. Despite John Don Wauchope of Edmonstone not even turning up to present his case or sending a representative to do so the Bill failed in its third reading on 30 May 1825 and the whole procedure had to start again. Another survey was carried out in 1825 by James Jardine, Engineer. Jardine’s route followed Grieve’s route closely but this time the Company had bought off its previous opponents and the Bill received the Royal Assent on 26 May 1826. When the ruling body in Leith, the Magistrates and Masters, began their administration in 1827 they realised that a railway connection to the harbour and docks at Leith would indeed be of great benefit for the prosperity of the Port and at a meeting held in June 1828 Bailie Hardie proposed that an independent scheme for a railway to communicate between Leith and the Edinburgh and Dalkeith Railway be established. A meeting of parties was held shortly afterwards again in the Royal Exchange Coffee House. The Forth Railway Company, as it was to be called, was represented by Sir John Hope, Sir J H Dalrymple, Robert Dundas and George Wauchope, all landowners and coalmasters in Midlothian. Mr James Jardine, the engineer for the 1825 survey, was asked to advise (1) on the best line for a railway from Niddrie North Mains to Leith Harbour and (2) the prices at which coal could be procured from the different hills (hills being a mining term for a dump of coal at the pithead). The Leith representatives furnished information to the effect that the yearly quantity of coal consumed by the inhabitants of Leith was 25,000 tons, various public works accounted for a further 10,000 tons, while coal for shipping and export amounted to 15,000 tons, a total of 50,000 tons. Calculations were made also for the quantity of grain, i.e. wheat, oats and barley, also beans, peas and general goods which might reasonably be carried by the railway, the information being gathered from ‘the most intelligent bakers in the town’ as well as the best informed inhabitants of Leith!
Jardine estimated the cost of a double railway line running a distance of four miles from Niddrie to Leith harbour at £29,628 and on the figures supplied for the carriage of the above commodities he estimated the revenue, allowing for repairs and management, to be £3000 which represented a 12 per cent return on a capital of £25,000. These figures, which appeared in Jardine’s report of 12 November 1828, were duly presented in the Prospectus which was issued in January 1829, a copy of which is illustrated. The proposed line attracted great interest, many of the subscribers having already invested in the railway being built from St. Leonards, Edinburgh, to Dalkeith (actually Dalhousie Mains), a number of them being landed proprietors as well as some Edinburgh bankers and lawyers prominent in Scottish railway financing.
The Magistrates and Masters of Leith were also impressed by the information in the Prospectus and resolved to subscribe £500 to the Leith Branch Railway at their meeting in February 1829. The company was duly floated and a Parliamentary Act was granted on 4 June 1829 ‘to enable the Edinburgh and Dalkeith Railway Company to raise a further sum of money to make a Branch from the said railway to Leith and for other purposes relating thereto’.
‘And whereas the making and maintaining of a branch from the main line of the said railway at or near to Niddrie North Mains, to or near to the Harbour of Leith, in the County of Edinburgh, will be of great public utility by opening an improved communication from the said harbour to the great fields of coal and lime in the interior of the said county and thereby supplying the public with coal and minerals at a cheaper rate and by offering a more easy and a cheap means of conveyance of corn and other agricultural produce to the Port of Leith’. Illustrations:

Stephen Woodhouse. 'To sleep Perchance to Dream': overnight  on the East Coast Main Line. 45-7.
It wasn’t until 1873 that the first sleeping car was produced in the United Kingdom and it was the NBR that did so. The Ashburys Railway Carriage and Iron Company built a six wheel sleeping car for the NBR that had two First Class compartments which could be converted into sleeping accommodation and included a lavatory, together with a second class compartment for seated passengers who, alas for them, had no access to a lavatory.
This vehicle was added to the 13.00 Glasgow to King’s Cross express from April 1873 and was subsequently joined by a similar vehicle from the Great Northern Railway (GNR) which allowed for a sleeping car to be provided in each direction every night. The Midland Railway introduced Pullman sleeping cars in 1874, whilst the first sleeping car with berths opening onto a side corridor, as is the case with current vehicles, was introduced by the North Eastern Railway (NER) in 1894 and this has since become the norm.

Graham Dick. Matthew Holmes. 48-50
The following article has its inspiration in the long lockdown months, when random internet browsing stumbled upon a treasure-trove of a website in ‘Grace’s Guide to British Industrial History' (https:// www. gracesguide.co.uk/), which reproduced a chapter from a 1901 publication entitled ‘Captains of Industry’ by William S. Murphy. The subject of the chapter, which struck me, ‘sicut sol e nubibus densis’, was MR. M. HOLMES, LOCOMOTIVE SUPERINTENDENT, NORTH BRITISH RAILWAY WORKS, COWLAIRS. This prompted me to start work on a project – more a vague notion – which I had once been rash enough to mention to our Journal Editor, since which he’d never ceased to prompt me. This article does not set out to offer a technical assessment of Holmes’ career but, using public records, to construct a credible narrative of Matthew Holmes The Man. It has long been ‘understood’ that Matthew Holmes was buried in anomaly with other biographical notes. According to the records of Dalry Cemetery, his age of death on 3rd July 1903 was 67, whereas his Obituary, published in the Glasgow Herald the following day states ‘in his 67th year’ – i.e. 66. The date of his death is thus well-documented so, by extrapolation, a birth-year of 1837 fits with other known facts.
His father, also Matthew, was a ‘business owner,’ possibly associated with the then-thriving textile industry in the town of Paisley. ‘Fowler’s Paisley Commercial Directory’ for 1838-9 lists a ‘Matthew Holms (Holms/Holmes seem interchangeable) of Holms & Andrew, millwrights, engineers & machine makers’ while the 1841-42 edition lists a Matthew Holms, Engineer. However, the commercial depression and industrial stagnation of the early 1840s appears to have brought about the failure of the business – in the next, 1845-46, edition of the Directory there is no listing. The young Matthew then moved with the family to Edinburgh, where Matthew (senior) had secured a post as Foreman at the Edinburgh & Glasgow Railway’s Haymarket Works. This is, of course, circumstantial rather than conclusive identification but a ‘millwright, engineer & machine maker’ would clearly have valuable, transferrable skills for a Railway Industry in its infancy. Matthew ( Jr) therefore completed the greater part of his education in Edinburgh, leaving school at 15 to enter an apprenticeship with the well-known Leith Engineers, Hawthorns & Co. In 1859, on completion of his apprenticeship, he followed his father into the service of the E&G, at around 22 years of age. Matthew remained with the E&G and its successor, the North British, for the rest of his working life. Matthew (Senior) sadly, may only just have lived to see the absorption of the E&G
Dalry Cemetery, Edinburgh, but little more seemed common knowledge. My enquiries took me to the City of Edinburgh Council’s Department of Cemeteries and Crematoria at Mortonhall, where Danielle Gartland- Quinn was able not only to provide confirmation by return but to provide relevant burial records acquired by the Council from the previous, private owners of the cemetery on Compulsory Purchase. Ms Gartland-Quinn’s invaluable assistance, without which this work could not have been completed, is gratefully acknowledged.
Matthew Holmes, (1844?- 1903) – The Man Matthew Holmes, with 21 years in post, the North British Railway’s longest serving Locomotive Superintendent, was born in Paisley in, some sources state, 1844 but this throws up an immediate into the NBR on 1 August 1865. The burial records of the Dalry Necropolis show the death of a Matthew Holmes, aged 69, on the 27th September, 1865; he was interred there on the 2nd of October in a grave which – as we will discover in due course – is adjacent to the final resting place of his son. Whether any advantage young Matthew may have gained was from working alongside his father or from an “early manifestation of that mechanical skill, intelligent grasp of business details, and ready command of men” (Murphy) can, once again only be conjectured but, at the age of twenty-nine Matthew was appointed Foreman over his department. In Murphy ’s (characteristically overblown) Victorian rhetoric, Holmes was a ‘tall man and wiry, of fresh complexion, keen features, and clear eyes, his face and figure suggest rather the gentleman-factor on a large estate or the well-to-do sheep farmer than the master of 800 locomotives and the brawny titans who build and drive them’. But, from other accounts, he was certainly a kindly, modest and approachable man (for his time), in contrast to many contemporaries such as the LNWR’s Francis Webb, whose reputation has come down to posterity as an irascible martinet whose temperament has been compared to an Old Testament Patriarch.
The E &G/N.B. R. amalgamation in 1865 brought little change to Haymarket Works for the first decade and Holmes worked away quietly, building on his engineering knowledge but in 1875 he was appointed Chief Inspector of the North British Railway at Cowlairs Works. This appointment made him, effectively, the Assistant to the Locomotive Superintendent, the redoubtable Dugald Drummond. He worked alongside Drummond in the development and design of increasingly larger and more powerful locomotives, no doubt forming his own opinions on some of these.
Matthew must have impressed the Board as, on Drummond’s 1882 departure to an equivalent post on the Caledonian, he was appointed at the age of 45 “as by right of merit” (Murphy) to Superintendent of the N. B. R. He continued designing locomotives largely in the Drummond tradition, albeit tending towards larger boilers and higher pressures, as well as instigating the systematic rebuilding of older (but otherwise sound) engines to more modern standards. He even experimented with compounding in the form of No. 224 (The Diver) recovered from the Tay Bridge Disaster. This was not a success and the locomotive was again rebuilt with simple expansion.
The duties of locomotive Superintendent on the North British were by no means confined to overseeing design, operation and maintenance of locomotives, but that of carriages and wagons, as well as the Running Department. This entailed supervision of, and examination and appointment of, drivers, firemen and shunters; their working hours and timetabling, as well as monitoring expenditure on ‘consumables’ and repairs. By 1899, he was responsible for 764 locomotives, nearly 2,850 carriages and over 61,000 wagons, over some 1,140 route miles.
Holmes continued in this onerous post for 21 years “the heavy responsibilities not visibly burdening him” (Murphy) during which time was responsible for design of some fine locomotives – one of his ‘C’ Class, J36, albeit rebuilt was, in 1967, the last operational steam locomotive in Scotland. Clearly, though, the burdens of his responsibilities did weigh more heavily than was admitted – Matthew Holmes retired on 1 March, 1903 (a Sunday), suffering from ‘heart disease’. His obituary reveals that his health had confined him to the family home, ‘Netherby’, in Lenzie, since that date and he passed away barely four months later on 3 July, leaving his widow and a young daughter, his only child.
Matthew Holmes’ funeral was held on Monday, 6 July 1903, his coffin being conveyed from ‘Netherby’ to Lenzie Station and then by rail (probably in an N. B. R. Corpse Van of his own design) to Waverley Station from where, at 12.15, the cortege proceeded to Dalry Cemetery. In typical Scottish style and brevity, the Glasgow Herald’s notice of Saturday, 4th July read “Friends please accept this (the only) intimation and invitation. No Flowers”.
This research offered a credible hypothesis to a curious matter – why a man who had lived in Lenzie and worked at Cowlairs, Glasgow, for 21 years, had come to be buried in a relatively small and obscure cemetery in an Edinburgh suburb. It is, of course, conjecture but Matthew Holmes, senior, had brought his family to Edinburgh just as the ‘Garden Cemeteries Movement’ was gathering pace, and the emerging middle classes were a target for the flattering promotional material – how better to confirm their Edinburgh status than securing a family resting place ‘for all eternity’ in such a fashionable location. Our Matthew Holmes was the third interment (plots, or ‘Lairs’, are normally excavated initially to sufficient depth for three burials) in Plot 352, Section O, which is in the north-east, or lower part of the cemetery, close to the Dalry Road entrance. The previous interments were of a Mary Holmes, of Glasgow, who died aged 58 on 14th November 1886 and the earliest was a Jane Trotter, daughter of Robert Trotter, who died of Smallpox aged 22 years, on Valentine’s day, 1872. One presumes that Mary Holmes was related to Matthew but nothing can be known of poor Jane except that her funeral commenced from the gate of Donaldson’s Hospital (for the Deaf ). Perhaps the lair was sold on in the fourteen years between her death and that of Mary, and acquired by the Holmes family?
The adjacent plot, 353, contains the remains of Matthew Holmes (Snr), who died aged 69 on 27th September 1865, William Holmes, died aged 64 on 25th September 1887 and Margaret G. Holmes, died aged 51 on 13th October, 1891. All of the above interments look place within 2 – 3 days of their death. Sadly, the cemetery records show no Monuments or other grave markers were ever erected on these Plots, making familial relationships very difficult to establish.
Armed with a map from the City of Edinburgh Council and known grave markers from adjacent Plots, my wife and I set out to explore Dalry Cemetery on Friday 22 October. Unfortunately, we found conditions anything but ‘picturesque and shrubberied’ and even far worse than anticipated. Decades of self-seeded sycamores and birches, tangled with brambles, briars, ivy and other vegetative unpleasantness made the going almost impenetrable. We persisted, however, and eventually found the monument to a Helen Milne, died 3rd April, 1871, recorded as Plot 349. From this, we were able to identify the approximate, heavily overgrown, location of Plots 352 and 353 and pay my respects at the unmarked grave of a loyal servant and arguably the greatest Locomotive Superintendent of the North British Railway.
Sic Transit Gloria
Footnote: If any sure-footed members are minded to undertake a similar pilgrimage, I will be happy to forward the map and other information. Heavy shoes and thornproof trousers are recommended, along with a stout stick.
Illustrations:
Matthew Holmes Photo: The Railway Magazine, July 1900
A view of Dalry Cemetery, taken on 22 October 2021 Photo: G Dick

DALRY CEMETERY
Dalry Cemetery, dating from 1846, is one of several 19th century ‘garden cemeteries’ established in Edinburgh by private Necropolis companies from the 1840s. Warriston, Dean, Rosebank, Newington and Grange Cemeteries have similar origins in this ‘Garden Cemeteries Movement’, offering the early Victorian middle and artisan classes a ‘picturesque and shrubberied’ final resting place for their loved ones.
The demand for these arose in the rapidly increasing population of the city – and its ‘traditional’ church graveyards, such as Greyfriars or Old Calton, finally driven to bursting point – ‘overly full’ – by a major cholera outbreak in 1832. Contemporary promotional material for the Dean Cemetery (later occupants of which include one Sir Thomas Bouch) give an indication of developing sensibilities towards death and public revulsion for the ‘old’ – “pernicious exhalations from the ground were as prejudicial to the general health as the spectacles presented in turning up graves for new interments were revolting to the better feelings of the age…”.
Dalry Necropolis, approximately 6 acres, was designed in 1847 by David Cousin (1808-78), who was Edinburgh’s City Superintendent of Works (a post later renamed ‘City Architect’, and developed and owned by the Metropolitan Cemetery Association. In addition to traditional burial plots, Dalry offered “a range of beautiful and substantial catacombs, well lighted, airy and dry”. At prices ranging from 20 guineas for a single private catacomb to a vault capable of holding 4 coffins at £36 (the equivalent of some £5000 today) they would appeal to the better-off but traditional ‘lairs’ were more modestly priced.
Dalry’s sloping, triangular site is bounded by Dalry Road, Dundee Street and Henderson Terrace, immediately west of the site of the Caledonian’s Dalry Road Sheds and their line to Leith (now the Murrayfield branch of the West Approach Road) and separated from the latter by the prosaically named Coffin Lane. The Athletic Arms public house, known locally as ‘the Diggers’, at the top of Henderson Terrace is testimony to the exertions of the gravediggers – in its heyday the cemetery hosted three funerals a day and there are records of 26,775 interments, although details only remain extant for some 5,500 plots. The last significant use appears to have been in the 1920s, while Dalry Cemetery, dating from 1846, is one of several 19th century ‘garden cemeteries’ established in Edinburgh by private Necropolis companies from the 1840s. Warriston, Dean, Rosebank, Newington and Grange Cemeteries have similar origins in this ‘Garden Cemeteries Movement’, offering the early Victorian middle and artisan classes a ‘picturesque and shrubberied’ final resting place for their loved ones. The demand for these arose in the rapidly increasing population of the city – and its ‘traditional’ church graveyards, such as Greyfriars or Old Calton, finally driven to bursting point – ‘overly full’ – by a major cholera outbreak in 1832. Contemporary promotional material for the Dean Cemetery (later occupants of which include one Sir Thomas Bouch) give an indication of developing sensibilities towards death and public revulsion for the ‘old’ – “pernicious exhalations from the ground were as prejudicial to the general health as the spectacles presented in turning up graves for new interments were revolting to the better feelings of the age…”. Dalry Necropolis, approximately 6 acres, was designed in 1847 by Peopl Footnote: If any sure-footed members are minded to undertake a similar pilgrimage, I will be happy to forward the map and other information. Heavy shoes and thornproof trousers are recommended, along with a stout stick.
Dalry Cemetery, dating from 1846, is one of several 19th century ‘garden cemeteries’ established in Edinburgh by private Necropolis companies from the 1840s. Warriston, Dean, Rosebank, Newington and Grange Cemeteries have similar origins in this ‘Garden Cemeteries Movement’, offering the early Victorian middle and artisan classes a ‘picturesque and shrubberied’ final resting place for their loved ones. The demand for these arose in the rapidly increasing population of the city – and its ‘traditional’ church graveyards, such as Greyfriars or Old Calton, finally driven to bursting point – ‘overly full’ – by a major cholera outbreak in 1832. Contemporary promotional material for the Dean Cemetery (later occupants of which include one Sir Thomas Bouch) give an indication of developing sensibilities towards death and public revulsion for the ‘old’ – “pernicious exhalations from the ground were as prejudicial to the general health as the spectacles presented in turning up graves for new interments were revolting to the better feelings of the age…”. Dalry Necropolis, approximately 6 acres, was designed in 1847 by
By the 1970s the – still privately owned – cemetery had fallen into a shocking state of dereliction although several attempts at improvement were made, most notably by the Action for Dalry Cemetery Group in 1976. In 1987, in recognition of growing public disquiet, Edinburgh District Council applied compulsory purchase procedures, the cemetery was ‘reopened’ as a public space in May 1991, following a clean up operation by the Better Gorgie and Dalry Campaign. Today some of the higher area to the south is maintained with short grass while a large part to the north is completely neglected and overgrown (euphemistically designated as a ‘Wildlife Area’). Many of the memorials have either fallen naturally or through vandalism over the years or, more recently, been toppled/laid flat by the Council in the interests of public safety.
Source: ‘Edinburgh – Survey of Gardens and Designed Landscapes’, City of Edinburgh Council, Peter McGowan Associates, 2007.

Stephen Woodhouse. ‘To sleep perchance to dream’ – overnight on the East Coast Main Line. 45-7
Ashburys Railway Carriage and Iron Company supplied one six-wheel sleeping carriage to the NBR in 1873 which had two sleeping compartments and a lavatory plus a single second class compartment, this was added to the 13.00 Glasgow to King's Cross train from April 1873. This was soon joined by a similar vehicle from the Great Northern Railway and this enabled a daily service. In 1874 the Midland introduced Pullman sleeping cars and in 1894 the North Eastern introduced cars with a side corridor which became the British norm.
The Race to the North in 1895 between expresses which left Euston and King's Cross for Aberdeen at 20.00. Before the racing the ECML got to Aberdeen in twenty minutes less than than the WCML. During the races trains were reduced in length and sleep must have been difficult to achieve.
From 1902 there were five services from King's Cross: one for Aberdeen, Inverness and Fort William; one for Aberdeen and Perth, and one with a portion for Glasgow. In 1909 Inverness wasserved alternatively by the ECML and WCL. From 1903 Newcastle sleepers were run separately and a sleeper for North Berwick was detached at Drem.
The LNER introduced second class cars in 1928 and enhanced its specfication for first class cars. By 1926 there were four overnight services: the 19.25 Highlandman for Fort William and Inverness; the 19.40 Aberdonian for Aberdeen with a through coach for Lossiemouth; the Night Scotsman for Glasgow, Dundee and Perth and the 22.35 with a sleeper for North Berwick detached at Drem: latterly reduced to Fridays only.
The LNER used the Atlantics from the pregrouping companies, but replaced them with Pacifics and used the P2 class between Edinburgh and Aberdeen and the D49 class to Perth.
British Railways introduced new sleeping cars based on the Mark I coach and with several variant: first, second and composite cars. Mark 3 sleepers were introduced in 1981 which introduced air conditioning, better braking and ride, but the cabins were of a single type with the upper bunk folded up for first class customers. In 1988 the ECML services were moved to the WCML due to faster day services and air competition.
There was a short-lived Aberdeen to Penzance sleeper operated jointly with the Great Western, but this was achieved by attaching a vehicle or vehicles to existing services.
Between 1955 and 1995 there were Motorail services where sleeping cars and car carrying vehicles, closed or unclosed were combined. For a time there were services from Holloway Road, later Caledonian Road to Edinburgh, but these were usurped by Kensington Olympia from 1969. Even more briefly Cambridge became a departure point for Stirling. Other overnight services used to run from Glasgow to Colchester. This service conveyed Glaswegian soldiers, who had disobeyed army discipline to the glasshouse (military prison thereat) and also fish vans and the through coaches from Fort William as far as Edinburgh. Kevin has fond memories of returning from Christmas leave in National Service days to York arriving thereat behind an A4 with a strong smell of fish at the rear of the train.
In an endeavour to meet competition from long distance coach services Starlight Specials were introduced from 1953 from Marylebone station to Edinburgh: these ran overnight nominally non-stop,
Illustration: NBR 0-6-0 with East Coast sleeper at Fort William in 1913

Graham Dick. Matthew Holmes. 48-50
Born in Paisley in, some sources state,  1844 but this throws up an immediate anomaly with other biographical notes. According to the records of Dalry Cemetery, his age of death on 3 July 1903 was 67, whereas his Obituary, published in the Glasgow Herald the following day states ‘in his 67th year’ – i.e. 66. The date of his death is thus well-documented so, by extrapolation, a birth-year of 1837 fits with other known facts.
His father, also Matthew, was a ‘business owner,’ possibly associated with the then-thriving textile industry in the town of Paisley. ‘Fowler’s Paisley Commercial Directory’ for 1838-9 lists a ‘Matthew Holms (Holms/Holmes seem interchangeable) of Holms & Andrew, millwrights, engineers & machine makers’ while the 1841-42 edition lists a Matthew Holms, Engineer. However, the commercial depression and industrial stagnation of the early 1840s appears to have brought about the failure of the business – in the next, 1845-46, edition of the Directory there is no listing. The young Matthew then moved with the family to Edinburgh, where Matthew (senior) had secured a post as Foreman at the Edinburgh & Glasgow Railway’s Haymarket Works. This is, of course, circumstantial rather than conclusive identification but a ‘millwright, engineer & machine maker’ would clearly have valuable, transferrable skills for a Railway Industry in its infancy. Matthew ( Jr) therefore completed the greater part of his education in Edinburgh, leaving school at 15 to enter an apprenticeship with the well-known Leith Engineers, Hawthorns & Co. In 1859, on completion of his apprenticeship, he followed his father into the service of the E&G, at around 22 years of age. Matthew remained with the E&G and its successor, the North British, for the rest of his working life. Matthew (Senior) sadly, may only just have lived to see the absorption of the E&G Matthew Holmes Matthew Holmes, with 21 years in post, the North British Railway’s longest serving Locomotive Superintendent, was born in Paisley in, some sources state, 1844 but this throws up an immediate problem as it conflicts with obituary in Glasgow Herald
Holmes continued in this onerous post for 21 years “the heavy responsibilities not visibly burdening him” (Murphy) during which time was responsible for design of some fine locomotives – one of his ‘C’ Class, J36, albeit rebuilt was, in 1967, the last operational steam locomotive in Scotland. Clearly, though, the burdens of his responsibilities did weigh more heavily than was admitted – Matthew Holmes retired on 1 March, 1903 (a Sunday), suffering from ‘heart disease’. His obituary reveals that his health had confined him to the family home, ‘Netherby’, in Lenzie, since that date and he passed away barely four months later on 3 July, leaving his widow and a young daughter, his only child.
Matthew Holmes’ funeral was held on Monday, 6 July 1903, his coffin being conveyed from ‘Netherby’ to Lenzie Station and then by rail (probably in an N. B. R. Corpse Van of his own design) to Waverley Station from where, at 12.15, the cortege proceeded to Dalry Cemetery. In typical Scottish style and brevity, the Glasgow Herald’s notice of Saturday, 4th July read “Friends please accept this (the only) intimation and invitation. No Flowers”.
This research offered a credible hypothesis to a curious matter – why a man who had lived in Lenzie and worked at Cowlairs, Glasgow, for 21 years, had come to be buried in a relatively small and obscure cemetery in an Edinburgh suburb. It is, of course, conjecture but Matthew Holmes, senior, had brought his family to Edinburgh just as the ‘Garden Cemeteries Movement’ was gathering pace, and the emerging middle classes were a target for the flattering promotional material – how better to confirm their Edinburgh status than

A Visit to Portobello East. John Wilson. 51-5.
September and October 1971 saw a major reconstruction of Portobello East Junction, accompanied by realignment of the East Coast main line through Portobello to eliminate the tight curve that had arisen from its original displacement in the course of the 19th Century to make way for the large marshalling yard built at that time. The yard closed in 1963. Part of its site was later occupied by the Freightliner Terminal that was opened in 1967. Although later closed in the 1980s, the terminal remains, out of use, to this day. There is a much bigger story about the NBR main line in this area, which the Journal Team hope to tell in future issues.

Railway Accident Near Melrose. Donald Cattanach. 56 (rear cover)
We aere grateful to Donald Cattanach for sending an extract from the Hawick Express and Advertiser of 15 July 1921 about an accident on 9 July, a transcription of which is presented below. Darnick was on the Waverley Route, a few miles west of Melrose, and a short distance from the present Tweedbank Station on the Borders Railway.
Broken Axle leads to great damage A railway accident occurred about a mile from Melrose on Saturday morning. A goods train was proceeding south, and, by a strange coincidence, just as it met another the axle of one of the waggons broke and threw the rest of the train off the line. It smashed into the goods train going north, and the result was a general mix-up. Waggons were thrown off the line and on to the embankment, and piled one on top of the other. The contents, largely composed of bottles of beer, were scattered in all directions, and the rails and permanent way were cut up and broken. A break-down squad arrived and set to work to clear away the debris but it took them all day before a single line was got clear. Traffic was entirely suspended, the early morning Pullman from London being diverted at Carlisle and sent over the Caledonian system to Edinburgh. All Saturday a fleet of motor cars plied between Melrose and Galashiels, conveying passengers and mails. No-one was hurt, although the Guard of one of the trains received a severe shaking. A visit to the scene of the accident revealed a devastating picture, relieved only by the knowledge that no passenger train had been involved. Waggons were piled one on the top of another, as many as four high, while others were smashed to matchwood. Others, with their contents, had been thrown on to the embankment, while the rails were broken and twisted, and wheels had sunk into the permanent way up to the axles. The goods train which was proceeding south was heavily laden, mostly with barrels of beer for Newcastle, and the atmosphere at the scene smelt strongly of malt. The smash occurred in the early hours of the morning, when there is no passenger traffic. Motor cars ran between Melrose and Galashiels for the benefit of passengers, the trains from the south being run up to the former place, and those from the north being stopped at the latter station. The scene of the accident was visited by great crowds of spectators both on Saturday and Sunday.
Illustration: On a different occasion, this time in 1908, NBR 4-4-0 locomotive No. 886 is pictured after an accident at Galashiels South, together with damaged vehicles. Again, barrels of beer seem to be involved.