Help with a Freelance Railway - The Scottish Central and Eastern Railway.

[scots region]

Hello all, So I've been working on a personal project, for a long time I have thought about designing a fictional or freelance railway, in fact I used to do it quite often when I was younger.  I became inspired by @Nile 'London Midland and Western Railway' project, which was a proposed but never built line that was to have run from London to Oxford. This clued me into the notion of unbuild or reworked railway proposals, this is also one of the rules I had set for myself, that the railway had to have the feel of a real life proposal. Now if you've read about Scottish railway history you'll know that the 'Scottish Central Railway' was very much a real railway, in fact if you've travelled in the central belt you will have probably travelled over it, its the main line from Perth to Stirling. Now as ideas go a railway between the two principal towns of Central Scotland is... actually fairly sensible. In fact because it was so sensible, it was immediately targeted by larger companies who saw it as part of a vital link to Aberdeen and further north, the Central would spend most of its life leased by the Caledonian railway before finally being absorbed entirely by that company in 1868. 

 

So my idea in short was for the Central to persevere as an independent company, the turning point seems to have been the failure to gain parliamentary approval for a planned amalgamation with another railway, the Edinburgh and Glasgow Railway in 1846, without this amalgamation the Scottish Central had to make other arrangements which lead to the leasing arrangement with the Caledonian and subsequent takeover. So what this thread is for is to ask if anyone has any ideas to add to the project. So far the idea is for the Scottish Central Railway to succeed in amalgamating with the Edinburgh and Glasgow, before moving into Fife and consolidating with the Edinburgh and Northern Railway, then on to Dundee, Aberdeen and Inverness at the railways most northern extent. I'm just not sure how it should go beyond this, further south? Into Midlothian or the borders? What other railways might be built in this scenario?

 

ScR.   

[JohnR]

I think it depends on what you have happening to the Scottish North Eastern Railway...

 

You could see the Scottish Central/E&G being a third railway, with the NBR working north through Fife and the Caledonian having running powers into Perth. Its a fascinating period of railway history with plenty of "what-ifs"

[scots region]

5 minutes ago, JohnR said:

I think it depends on what you have happening to the Scottish North Eastern Railway...

 

You could see the Scottish Central/E&G being a third railway, with the NBR working north through Fife and the Caledonian having running powers into Perth. Its a fascinating period of railway history with plenty of "what-ifs"

 

Yes, the 1840s are a wonderfully febrile period for the Alt-history fan. For example it was originally mooted that the Caledonian main line would avoid the climb over Beattock and instead run through Nithsdale via Dumfries, a gentler but longer route into Glasgow. Had this happened, and had another company pushed a line over Beattock instead, then it is entirely possible that the 'Caley' does not grow to the behemoth it did in our world and instead becomes a backwater company in the South West of Scotland. Another arresting diversion is the fact the Edinburgh and Northern Railway initially planned a bridge over the Tay and its own station in Perth, rather than going via Moncrieffe tunnel. Now if you look at a map of Newburgh in Fife, which the Edinburgh and Northern, later called the Edinburgh, Perth and Dundee Railway, ran through you can see Mugdrum island, which is all but perfect to build a bridge across. So this could lead to multiple stations in Perth itself.

 

        

[34theletterbetweenB&D]

2 hours ago, scots region said:

... I'm just not sure how it should go beyond this, further south? Into Midlothian or the borders? What other railways might be built in this scenario?

Scotland's principal trade and traffic hub is Glasgow. So the historic rewrite to enable your Central line to take control of the Edinburgh and Glasgow opens the road to everything else. This company just 'follows the money' and creates its own route toward the major English industrial conurbations in the North-West, then in the new century snaps up the Great Central after that line has near bankrupted itself with the London Extension; and absorbs the Midland at the grouping, when the Big Five are created. Could you have some fun with that?

[scottystitch]

1 hour ago, scots region said:

 

Yes, the 1840s are a wonderfully febrile period for the Alt-history fan. For example it was originally mooted that the Caledonian main line would avoid the climb over Beattock and instead run through Nithsdale via Dumfries, a gentler but longer route into Glasgow. Had this happened, and had another company pushed a line over Beattock instead, then it is entirely possible that the 'Caley' does not grow to the behemoth it did in our world and instead becomes a backwater company in the South West of Scotland. Another arresting diversion is the fact the Edinburgh and Northern Railway initially planned a bridge over the Tay and its own station in Perth, rather than going via Moncrieffe tunnel. Now if you look at a map of Newburgh in Fife, which the Edinburgh and Northern, later called the Edinburgh, Perth and Dundee Railway, ran through you can see Mugdrum island, which is all but perfect to build a bridge across. So this could lead to multiple stations in Perth itself.

 

        

 

It's funny that you should bring that up. As part of my back story to Perth Caledonian, I have visited the crossing of the tay that you describe, albeit slightly down stream, so that the Edinburgh and Northern, doesn't meet up with the route through Glenfarg at Bridge of Earn (and thence through Moncrieffe tunnel), but approaches Perth sharing the Perth and Dundee line.

 

The bridge would need to be a swing (rather like at Throsk?) or lifting bridge to ensure that shipping could still reach Perth Harbour.

 

My doodlings attached (the actually built line is "scored out" in red):

[scots region]

Ahh yes forgot about Perth Harbour, @34theletterbetweenB&D Interesting proposal, though I haven't quite thought as far ahead as the grouping.  

[CKPR]

No problem with your locomotives as your CME will be a member of the Drummond family as per the first rule of 19th century Scottish railway engineering...