Perth Caledonian

Kimbo about sums it up.

Kind regards

Geoff

 

Very interesting. And quite feasible, as the original proposal for the Edinburgh, Perth and Dundee Railway, or perhaps I should call it the Edinburgh and Northern Railway, as that was its original name while it was in the planning stages, had it bridging the Tay after Newburgh. That proposal did not proceed due to lack of support, but things could easily have been different.

I just have some issues with the suggested scenario. The plan has a joint North British and Highland station and a Caledonian station but, unless I have missed something, all the Caledonian trains heading to or from Aberdeen and Dundee West will have to travel through the NB/HR station. Also, how would you handle the through coaches to the Highland Railway that came from the south to Perth via the Caledonian? It seems to me that operations at the NB/HR station would end up being pretty much the same as those at Perth General.

I also have my doubts about the positioning of the Caledonian station. Perth General is not exactly in the centre of Perth, but it is a short walk from it. Your proposed Caledonian station is considerably further away to the south. Now, the Caledonian was a wealthier company than both the North British and the Highland, and conducted its business affairs with a goodly measure of pride and arrogance. I find it hard to believe that it would allow itself to be pushed to the outskirts of a town (maybe more that that, as I suspect that in the nineteenth century this area would be more like countryside) by what it would have seen as two companies of lesser importance than itself. I would suggest that your scenario should have the Caledonian station to the north rather than the south of the NB/HR one.

I will follow this with interest.

 

The same thought occurred to me when I was reading through your description.

I would expect the Caledonian to have the larger of the two stations, however it could have ended up the other way around. After all, not every Caledonian station was a grand affair. Glasgow Central was (and still is) a magnificent structure, right in the centre of everything, whereas Buchanan Street station was, although not in the middle of nowhere, certainly not in the city centre, and it was little more than a glorified wooden shed. So really, anything is possible.

A "what if" scenario can be a fascinating road to go down and, if you do your research properly, can be quite convincing. Forty or so years ago, I thought out a couple of "what if" schemes but never actually followed through on them.

One was based on the possibility that, rather than the "Big Four" there were five railway companies: the Southern and Great Western being as they were, but the LMS (which would have to be renamed the London Midland) and LNER both stopping at the Scottish-English border, and all the Scottish companies being grouped together. Apparently such a scheme was considered at one stage but was dismissed fairly early in the planning stages for the Grouping. As with the English companies (think of the Midland influence in the early LMS), one of the pre-Grouping companies would most likely dominate the others and, to my mind, it would be the Caledonian, with their blue livery being applied to every Scottish passenger or mixed traffic locomotive. At times I wish I had gone down this track, as a Reid Atlantic in full Caley blue livery would, I think, look magnificent.

The other plan left the railways as they were, but had a line constructed that never got past the planning stages. When the Montrose and Bervie Railway was being promoted, the Great North of Scotland Railway hatched a plan to give farmers and traders in their territory direct access to the south (we are talking about the early 1860s, when there was no direct connection between the GNS and Scottish North Eastern (later absorbed in the Caledonian) with both having separate stations. The GNS proposed to turn the Montrose and Bervie into a main line, joined to the main line we know today at Montrose, with running powers over the Dundee and Arbroath (I'm not sure what they proposed to do for the section between Montrose and Arbroath, running powers over the North British maybe?) and, to the north, joining up with the SNE main line at Limpet Mill, just a bit north of Stonehaven, with running powers over the SNE to Aberdeen. The dream ended when the Bill was rejected. My never to be built layout was to have been somewhere between Limpet Mill and Aberdeen, with Caley, North British and GNS trains all running alongside each other.

So what happened to my grand plans? Well, I lost interest in model railways for 20 or 30 years, an interest that was rekindled three or so years ago, and I'm now constructing a layout using Hornby Dublo three rail equipment, although I am also building some Caledonian and Highland stock as well........

Regards.

Jim

 

Ithas been a very hot and humid day here so, rather than getting out into the garden, I have been inside and, for some of that time, I was flicking through some of my Scottish railway books. Perth had a rather interesting railway history and all it would have taken would have been for one of the early companies to have been swallowed up by the North British rather than the Caledonian, and something like this might have happened. I had forgotten too that Perth has a harbour at Friarton, which was there well before the railways came on the scene, so you might come up with a back story about the Caledonian chasing lucrative goods traffic rather than passenger traffic.

1962-64? Does that mean you're going to have several A4 Pacifics?

Jim

 

There was such a variety here towards the end of the steam era - as well as the A4s, some of the other classes included A1, A2, A3, V2 and so on (I am talking of the Strathmore and the Dundee-Perth lines rather than the other lines that led into Perth, as they are my main interest). Other than the two "what if" scenarios I mentioned earlier, I did plan another layout which, this time, I made a start on the rolling stock and buildings for, although the layout never eventuated, mainly due to lack of funds and lack of space. It was to have been based loosely on Luncarty, between Perth and Stanley Junction, allowing me to run Caledonian and Highland stock, although I never quite made my mind up if I wanted it to be pre-grouping or early LMS.

Stanier Princess Coronations? They can be addictive - I have 22 of them (mostly Dublo or Wrenn, with a few Tri-ang/Hornby streamliners). I also have some A4s, but I've only got three of them....

Regards.

Jim

 

Now if I hadn't ended up running vintage Dublo and Trix rather than scale modelling, a model of Stanley Junction would be high up on the list of things I would want to do.

It's not relevant to this thread, but all this talk of the Strathmore line reminds me of a trip my father and I made back to Scotland in late 1975. We were driving from Brechin to Perth and took a secondary route in order to visit Aberlemno, Glamis and Scone on the way and this route took us through Forfar. My father had been talking about Forfar railway station and its buildings for some time (he was an art teacher but, in his early days at Dundee Art College, was seriously thinking about becoming an architect, hence the interest in buildings) and, as we reached Forfar, we turned into the street where the station was, only to see one forlorn building and a run down goods yard. My father was at a loss for words and didn't say much for the next half hour or so. We turned the car around, stopped outside a bakery, consumed a couple of Forfar bridies, and proceeded onwards, never to visit Forfar again.....

 

All I can remember is that the bakery wasn't far from the site of the station. Ask me where anything was in Brechin, Edzell, Montrose or Arbroath and I could probably tell you, but I never got to see much of Forfar.

My father was a railway enthusiast, although not a modeller. He grew up in a house in Park Road, Brechin, which was practically next to the station (there was only the now vanished agricultural market between the house and the station) and his bedroom window had a good view of the station yards. His Sunday School teacher was an engine driver and used to give my father (he would have been about seven or eight at the time, so we're talking around about 1929 or 30) footplate rides on what would have been a Caley 439 class from Brechin to Bridge of Dun and back. My father also told me that he walked the length of the railway line from Brechin to Edzell - and this was while the trains were still running.....

I'll have to check out Pavement Stanes should I ever be back in Scotland again.

Regards.

Jim