Nethertown Goods (aka Netherton) in Dunfermline

[AngusDe]

Recently, on a idle afternoon, I was exploring the local area on the excellent NLS maps site and came across this little gem. 

So far, my googling has found no articles or photos on this station/goods yard, other than the basics, opened 1834, closed 1959.

 

The 25" map shows a simple 3 point, 4 siding goods yard, ideal for any shunting plank. see:- http://maps.nls.uk/view/82882194 (half way down the left hand edge of the map).

 

Anyway, I was wondering if anyone knows of any books that might explain the origins of the line, I'm guessing a original mining tramway, given the set track like right angle curve at the junction, and its operation in its later days as there is no run round loop anywhere near by, according the the 25" maps?
 

cheers,

a Curious Angus

[keefer]

According to RAILSCOT, nethertown was part of the dunfermline & charlestown railway, which was originally the Elgin railway - an early waggonway from the Elgin colliery to the limekilns, quarries and harbour

 

http://www.railbrit.co.uk/Charlestown_Railway/index.php

[keefer]

Looking at older maps, nethertown used to have more interesting trackwork!

 

Dunfermline town plan 1854:

 

http://maps.nls.uk/view/74415331#zoom=4&lat=7833&lon=14720&layers=BT

 

It also shows a very short passing loop, just west of the road to the west of the station - though this doesn't seem to have lasted

[AngusDe]

Keefer,

Interesting! I hadn't noticed that town map yet! The trackwork at the "junction" is unusual and also further up the "main line", it might have been rope worked up there.

I'm still curious as to how the Nethertown branch managed to survive until 1959.

 

I think it would make an interesting model, a few of the surrounding buildings are still there.

 

Angus

 

[scotcent]

As  stated  the  Netherton  branch  was  part  of  the  Earl  of  Elgin's  Railway,  which  ran  from  his  pits  North  and  West  of  Dunfermline  to  his  harbour  at  Charlestown.  The  history  is  complex  and  goes  back  to  the  1700's.  The  authoritative  history  is  "The  Early  Railways  of  West  Fife"  by  Brotchie  and  Jack;  it's  a  large  volume,  and  expensive,  but  I  would  assume  the  Dunfermline  library  would  have  it.  It  was  originally  connected  to  the  rope  worked  Pittencrieff  incline,  but  when  that  went  out  of  use  in  the  mid  1800's  it  became  a  siding  from  Elbowend  Junction,  worked  as  a  yard. I  haven't  been  in  the  area  for  many  years,  but  it  used  to  be  possible  to  see  what  had  been  a  pillar  for  the  crossing  gates  where  it  crossed  the  Limekilns  road.

There  were  a  number  of  mills  in  the  lower  part  of  the  town,  and  it  would  have  been  a  lot  easier  for  the  horses  to  take  the  goods  to  Netherton  rather  than  face  the  climb  up  the  New  Row  to  the  main  yard  at  the  Upper  Station.

There  is  an  instruction  in  the  1947  appendix  that  only  4  wheeled  locomotives  were  to  be  used.

It  would  be  a  nice  wee  layout,  tho'  I  have  no  idea  what  the  buildings  round  about  looked  like -- it's  all  new  housing  now.

 

Allan  F

[AngusDe]

Allan,

Thanks for that, I'll hopefully get a chance to visit the library this week and see if I can get a hold of the book.

Elbowend Junction seems another interesting site with modelling possibilities, the 1927 25" map shows a double ended junction with just a scissors crossing at each end for the 4 diverging single lines and no sidings, with the Kincardine and Charlestown/Crombie lines departing SW'wards in parallel as double track!

​Disappointed about the 4 wheel loco restriction as my idle day dreaming is of a O gauge shunting plank with a Dapol 08....

 

Angus

[AngusDe]

I've been to the library and "The Early Railways of West Fife" is on inter Library order.

 

In the meantime I borrowed "the railways of Fife" by WS Bruce. In it I read the line was horse drawn when the branch was opened in 1834,but more interestingly it was the first passenger carrying line in Fife, by 1842 it was carrying 24,485 passengers a year between Charlestown and Dunfermline, the service ceased in 1863.

 

An account of a journey from the Fife Herald during 1857:-

 

"I went down to Charlestown in the omnibus by the Elgin Railway. We started at 2:25pm and after nearly three-quarters of an hour's hard riding by horse and partly by steam, we found ourselves about 300 yards from the Dunfermline station. It was a stand every other half minute, or a run back, or a shift of some kind, and when we made the brae head at Charlestown, there was the steamboat (from Edinburgh) and the little boat under full sail half way out of the port to meet it."

 

The Elgin railway/wagonway was originally built between 1772 and 1792 to a gauge of 4ft. It changed from wooden to iron rail about 1810. It is unclear when it changed gauge but in 1848 the Edinburgh and Northern railway was authorised to connect to and relay some other colliery tramways to standard gauge which by 1867 were exporting their coal through Charlestown. I can imagine there were some sites where there were dual gauge 4' and standard gauge stretches? Or am I getting carried away at the thought of a dual gauge layout with OOish&Em/P4 track, lol!

 

All fascinating stuff, to me at least!

 

Angus

[AngusDe]

I've now got the "The Early Railways of West Fife" from the library and a copy of the article from the good folk at the NB Study Group, so I'm well on the way to declaring myself the world expert on the Netherto(w)n Branch, lol!

 

​I earlier mentioned the possibility of dual gauge track work at some Fife mine sites and sure enough there are some pictures in "The Early Railways of West Fife" of such track work, I know I shouldn't post pics from a book, but in this case I'm sorely tempted by the fascinating point arrangement!....

 

Angus

 

(edit) PS Did you know the first steam locomotive in Scotland was on the Earl of Elgin's railway?

 

 

 

[pH]

PS Did you know the first steam locomotive in Scotland was on the Earl of Elgin's railway?

 

Well, yes, but it was secondhand, having first been used 6 to 8 years earlier on the Kilmarnock and Troon railway.

[ian@stenochs]

Well, yes, but it was secondhand, having first been used 6 to 8 years earlier on the Kilmarnock and Troon railway.

So it wasn'nt the first!

 

Ian.i

[AngusDe]

Ah well, #cough#, that's what you get when you flick through a book before you read it.....

 

....still the first loco in Scotland, just not it's first use (he muttered) in Scotland.

 

Reading further/properly, it wasn't a success on either railway, being too heavy at 5 tons for the iron rails of both railways and broke many, it ended it's days as a static power plant at one of the mines.

It's journey between the two lines was interesting, taken by road to Port Dundas and then by boat to Charlestown.

 

Angus

[pH]

It's journey between the two lines was interesting, taken by road to Port Dundas and then by boat to Charlestown.

 

Angus

Sorry, going OT, but just out of interest, does it say why it went that way? Rather than taking it by road to Port Dundas, since it was going on from there by water, it would seem to be easier to have taken it by boat from Troon to Bowling and all the way through the canal.

[Ian Kirk]

Hi All,

 

The Fordell Railway, on the other side of the M90 from the Netherton Branch was to 4ft 4in gauge and remained that way. This included some mixed/standard gauge in some of the collieries. This looked very much like a continuous check rail. The railway closed in I think 1946 but traces remained until Dalgety Bay housing was built in the 1970s. I think that the locomotives had large dumb buffers to handle standard wagons and their own cauldron type which lasted until the end. Some of these, very overgrown, were still around in the mid 60s.

 

best wishes,

 

Ian

[Strathyre]

Hi All,

 

The Fordell Railway, on the other side of the M90 from the Netherton Branch was to 4ft 4in gauge and remained that way. This included some mixed/standard gauge in some of the collieries. This looked very much like a continuous check rail. The railway closed in I think 1946 but traces remained until Dalgety Bay housing was built in the 1970s. I think that the locomotives had large dumb buffers to handle standard wagons and their own cauldron type which lasted until the end. Some of these, very overgrown, were still around in the mid 60s.

 

best wishes,

 

Ian

Ian, I seem to remember many years ago (actually 1981 and Bob Reid will remember this!) that the SRPS discovered a wagon believed to have been a survivor of the Fordell railway - it was lying by the side of a road as I remember. Anyway, it was duly recovered and taken back to Falkirk whereupon somebody measured the gauge and found that it was  Standard Gauge...

 

Oh well, it was fun at the time!

 

Paul

[AngusDe]

Sorry, going OT, but just out of interest, does it say why it went that way? Rather than taking it by road to Port Dundas, since it was going on from there by water, it would seem to be easier to have taken it by boat from Troon to Bowling and all the way through the canal.

 

 

I might be wrong but Google Street View seems to suggest that all four crossing gateposts on the Limekilns Road survive, those on the east side having been incorporated into a garden wall and those on the west giving access to a footpath along the south side of Abington Road which seems to follow the course of the branch.

 

There is no mention why it went by road (from Kilmarnock) but it must have been a fair undertaking to shift a 5 ton loco by the 1824 version of pickfords! The loco changed hands for £70, but no mention if that included delivery.

 

The book states:- 

 

"At Charlestown it was quickly found to exhibit the characteristics which have been given as the very reason for its lack of success at Kilmarnock. if the loco was actually tried on the rails at Charlestown,its wheels would have had to be fitted with flanged tyres, and although the gauge of the K&T was similar to the Elgin Railway additional adjustment....would probably have been required." (my emphasis) 

 

When the branch opened in 1834 the rails were of Beech wood rather than iron.

 

The stone pillars still seen on streetview were erected at a cost of £7.0.0d! Seven quid well spent, eh?

 

When 13yo Andrew Carnegie left for America, Wed 17 May 1848, from Nethertown station. He subsequently wrote:-

 

"On the morning of the day we started from beloved Dunfermline, in the omnibus that ran upon the coal railroad to Charlestown, I remember that I stood with tearful eyes looking out of the window until Dunfermline vanished from view..."

 

There was also a previous branch to Nethertown, laid in 1812 and ripped up in 1819 just a bit further south.

 

When passenger services started it was 6d single to Charlestown, when the average earning for a miner working 12hrs underground was 1s6d! Scottish coal miners were only truly emancipated from slavery and bondage in 1799, 35 years previously! 

 

The Britain from Above 1932 pic shows just how small the yard was, it really would be great model, the drill hall to the south and houses to the north are still there.

 

There is still so much to read in the book, I'm sorely tempted to get a copy for myself, but the only 2nd hand copy on Amazon is £50!

 

I hope these ramblings are of interest.

 

Angus

[Waverley47708]

If you go down the Forth Street / Limekilns Road in Dunfermline and stop just past the entrance to Abington Road, you will see a lane. I used to live there and was told or thought the stone pillars at the end of the lane were part of the level crossing, one or perhaps two of the stone pillars are still there. They are just off the map linked to in the original post.

[keefer]

http://goo.gl/maps/ag7pY

 

Lane on the left, other posts on the right at the new build house