Scotland Street passenger station building (Edinburgh) c1850

[Dunalastair]

There have been several models of Scotland Street station in its goods station guise, as per this image.

 

 

Having built a diorama of Canal Street station at the other end of Scotland Street Tunnel, I am now interested in the possibility of a simplified diorama of Scotland Street before the NBR built the diversionary route to Waverley for passenger trains. Scotland Street is where trains swapped between locos and the rope heading for Canal Street - the freewheeled back down controlled by the brake wagons I modelled in 1:148 for Canal St.

 

There is an early map on NLS or at 

 

http://www.disused-stations.org.uk/e/edinburgh_scotland_street/1853town_plan.gif

 

As well as a footbridge spanning the surviving tunnel mouth, this shows a long-gone station building with a platform awning which might have been similar to that at Canal St, but on a smaller scale. The ELG/ENR/EPD apparently built stations from material recovered from the demolition of Belleview House, and the (I think relocated) Trinity station building also gives a clue. Probably a shallow hipped roof with classical features. 

 

A very long shot this, but can anybody point me to an illustration (photo or engraving) of the station building?

 

 

 

 

[DOCJACOB]

Nice picture (dont recall seeing it before)

 

Quick search in NBRSG isnt helpful I'm afraid. One really early (probably earliest) image is dreadful & thus pretty useless. 

 

Old newspaper archives for engraving, have newspaper engraving of the train ferry at Granton in my stash.  

[Artless Bodger]

The wagon looks interesting - highfit? There were some fitted with a roller shutter roof - is this one? There seems to be a frame on top of the side. I see it is shock wagon too.

[keefer]

Thought there might be something on RCHAMS Canmore but just really the '70s b/w photos.

(Canmore is full of photos taken by Prof. John R. Hume in the mid-70s. All over Scotland, he just seemed to be recording towns as they were i.e. not necessarily historic/famous subjects. They are fabulous in their 'ordinariness').

That said, there is this interesting geological diagram of the tunnel, including the various ground strata.

I had always assumed the Tunnel ran 'downhill' to Waverley but it actually runs up!

https://canmore.org.uk/collection/1224652

Subbrit.org has some 'old' stuff but not of Scotland St. station

[Dunalastair]

8 hours ago, keefer said:

Thought there might be something on RCHAMS Canmore but just really the '70s b/w photos.

(Canmore is full of photos taken by Prof. John R. Hume in the mid-70s. All over Scotland, he just seemed to be recording towns as they were i.e. not necessarily historic/famous subjects. They are fabulous in their 'ordinariness').

That said, there is this interesting geological diagram of the tunnel, including the various ground strata.

I had always assumed the Tunnel ran 'downhill' to Waverley but it actually runs up!

https://canmore.org.uk/collection/1224652

Subbrit.org has some 'old' stuff but not of Scotland St. station

 

Thankyou for looking. I had seen the strata diagram and the Subbrit material. Generally, the tunnel is well covered, but the passenger days of the station (originally 'Canonmills' in some accounts) much less so.

[Dunalastair]

17 hours ago, DOCJACOB said:

Nice picture (dont recall seeing it before)

 

Quick search in NBRSG isnt helpful I'm afraid. One really early (probably earliest) image is dreadful & thus pretty useless. 

 

Old newspaper archives for engraving, have newspaper engraving of the train ferry at Granton in my stash.  

 

Thankyou for looking in NBRSG.

 

I have found various engravings of the original railway, Edinburgh being a well-illustrated city (as befits its publishing tradition), but the earliest incarnation of Scotland Street Station (aka Canonmills) is frustratingly elusive! There have been so many articles on the tunnel, usually quoting RLS, that I suspect that if there had been an image of a train coming out of the bottom end of the tunnel then it would have been used by now.

 

For instance, just a little after the period of interest, there was evidently a misadventure on the way to Granton:

http://www.edinphoto.org.uk/0_ENG/0_engraving_-_iln_granton_railway_accident_1860_1024.jpg

[Bernard Lamb]

Sorry can't help. I do find the area interesting. so thanks for bringing up the subject.

Just realized that ' 44 Scotland Street ' is almost 20 years old. I was in Edinburgh around that time and looked forward to reading each episode as it was published.

Bernard

[Dunalastair]

On 24/10/2023 at 08:49, Bernard Lamb said:

Sorry can't help. I do find the area interesting. so thanks for bringing up the subject.

Just realized that ' 44 Scotland Street ' is almost 20 years old. I was in Edinburgh around that time and looked forward to reading each episode as it was published.

Bernard

 

Yes, McCall Smith's fictional Berty and Co would have had a good view of the station site had the even side numbering not stopped in reality at 28.

 

I was able to visit what remains at the site on Wednesday morning, in the course of a damp run around the New Town, so no camera. There was a large demolition site at the end of Eyre Terrace so it looks like the view from Royal Terrace is about to change again. As well as a modern stairway from Summerbank on the east side down to what is now the playground, careful inspection of the bank above the retaining wall showed surviving vestiges of the original street level access staircase adjacent to the tunnel portal, and less obviously, possible evidence of supports in the stonework where the footbridge linked the two platforms back in the 1850s. 

 

Before my trip north, I had been roughing out ideas in my preferred 3D design tool for a 1:300 simplified diorama to fit in an A4 footprint, and realised that at that scale, a simple rectangular building with hipped roof and a Canal Street style platform awning is about as much as I need in any case. 

 

But it would still be good to see some evidence!

[Enterprisingwestern]

On 24/10/2023 at 00:06, Artless Bodger said:

The wagon looks interesting - highfit? There were some fitted with a roller shutter roof - is this one? There seems to be a frame on top of the side. I see it is shock wagon too.

 

12 ton high goods shock absorbing wagon. Shocroof A. Diagram 1/055. B726125 - 726224.

Some, if not all were lettered for ConDor traffic.

 

Mike.

[ejstubbs]

9 hours ago, Dunalastair said:

There was a large demolition site at the end of Eyre Terrace

 

That'll be the ex Royal Bank of Scotland Fettes Row data centre and Dundas Street IT department offices, now being turned in to bijoux apartments and the like IIRC.  Must have been around 2015/2016 when I last worked there, on a programme that literally no-one doing actual work on it (as opposed to the senior management who'd dreamed the thing up) believed would ever see the light of day - and not long after I moved on to pastures new it was, to no-one's surprise, canned.  But only after several millions had been spent, including renting capacity for the not-so-new system to run on, in a data centre which was owned by an American corporation - despite the potential ramifications of the PATRIOT Act on any bank data held there being spelled out in some detail when the idea was first floated...

 

King George V Park, next to the playground which now occupies the site of Scotland Street Station, was a pleasant place for a lunchtime stroll to get away from the madness within.  A hundred years or so previously it had been the site of the Royal Patent Gymnasium, a Victorian outdoor fitness centre - which does sound a trifle bonkers, but was apparently quite popular for a while.  It might have been entertaining to include a session on the 'Great Sea Serpent' during my lunchtime peregrinations.  Remnants of the aforementioned attraction have been now discovered under what used to be the Royal Bank's not-really-a-car-park* during the new construction work.

 

* It was never properly surfaced.  According to RBS folklore this was some kind of business rates fiddle, in that they could argue that it wasn't a staff car park as such, just a piece of empty ground that staff happened to park on.  How they explained away the manned security barrier was never explained.  Every six months or so an e-mail would be sent round announcing the temporary closure of the not-really-a-car-park while the surface, such as it was, was regraded.  As I used to take the bus to work there, it made no odds to me.

[Dunalastair]

That would fit - though it was only about 08h30, there was a large machine tearing down a concrete-framed building which would once have fronted onto Dundas Street, I think. With that car park, it looked like a sizeable site - given Edinburgh property prices there must be a tidy profit there for the developer. The well-heeled residents of Royal Crescent and Fettes Row must be wondering whether the new development will be an improvement on what was there before.

 

I have started a diorama thread at https://www.rmweb.co.uk/topic/182326-scotland-street-diorama/#comment-5322742 - but there will be no room for Sea Serpents ...

 

Edited October 27, 2023 by Dunalastair

[Dunalastair]

On 23/10/2023 at 14:53, DOCJACOB said:

 

Quick search in NBRSG isnt helpful I'm afraid. One really early (probably earliest) image is dreadful & thus pretty useless. 

 

 

  

 

Now making progress with my (much simplified) diorama over on the other thread. Please forgive me for quoting you again, but does the NBRSG have anything about the EP&D loco and carriage liveries before the NBR took over, by any chance? I have looked at my copy of the SLS 'Locos of the NBR' but cannot see any reference. I'm guessing green for the locos and either varnished wood or green for the carriages (like the SCR), though a maroon colour would make a nice contrast on the model.

[DOCJACOB]

I’ll look for you. The journal did look at early days of Waverley, early coaches & guess something there. 

[Dunalastair]

23 minutes ago, DOCJACOB said:

I’ll look for you. The journal did look at early days of Waverley, early coaches & guess something there. 

 

Many thanks!

[DOCJACOB]

On 04/11/2023 at 18:26, Dunalastair said:

 

Many thanks!

Nothing much on a quick squint at Journal 

 

6 part article on Waverley. Usual known images of Scotland Street. Your thoughts are pretty much correct. 

[Dunalastair]

Many thanks for looking. 

1 hour ago, DOCJACOB said:

Nothing much on a quick squint at Journal 

 

6 part article on Waverley. Usual known images of Scotland Street. Your thoughts are pretty much correct. 

 

Many thanks for looking, I'll go with my current thoughts.