The Formartine and Buchan Railway was a railway company operating in the north-east of Scotland. It was built to link the important fishing ports of Fraserburgh and Peterhead with Aberdeen. It had a junction with the main line of the Great North of Scotland Railway (GNoS) at . Due to shortage of finance, the line was opened in stages as money became available. The section from Dyce to Mintlaw opened in 1861, and from there to Peterhead in 1862. The Fraserburgh line opened in 1865. The company was never profitable, and it was heavily supported financially by the GNoSR; it was formally absorbed by that company in 1866.
The area served was a good agricultural district, and farm produce supplemented the buoyant fish traffic, which included fishing boats' crews travelling home; there was some leisure business, especially connected with a golf course and hotel sponsored by the GNoSR at Cruden Bay.
Ordinary use of the line declined after 1950, although the line fared better than some others because of the poor road network at the time. Nevertheless, the passenger service was withdrawn in 1965. Notwithstanding the development of the offshore oil industry, freight train operation was discontinued to Peterhead in 1970 and to Fraserburgh in 1979. There is now no railway activity on the line.
Promotion and authorisation
A branch line to Peterhead and Fraserburgh was contemplated in 1846 but not proceeded with because of the financial collapse following the Railway Mania. The region was one of the most fertile and prosperous parts of Aberdeenshire, and the important fishing ports of Peterhead and Fraserburgh lay in the area.Sir Malcolm Barclay-Harvey, A History of the Great Northern of Scotland Railway, 1949, pages 43 and 44John Thomas and David Turnock, A Regional History of the Railways of Great Britain: Volume 15, North of Scotland, David and Charles, Newton Abbot, 1989, ISBN 0 946537 03 8, pages 183 and 184H A Vallance, The Great North of Scotland Railway, David and Charles, Dawlish, 1965, pages 61 to 63
The attempt to promote a railway connection was revived in 1854, and rival schemes were promoted in Parliament. After a series of struggles, the Formartine and Buchan Railway, supported by the Great North of Scotland Railway (GNoSR) was authorised by the (21 & 22 Vict. c. cviii) on 23 July 1858.Formartine is an ancient name for the area north of Dyce. It was to run from the main Aberdeen to Keith line at Dyce to Fraserburgh and Peterhead, forking at Mintlaw, with a branch to Ellon. Authorised capital was to be £300,000; the parliamentary process had cost the GNoSR £25,000Donald J Grant, Directory of the Railway Companies of Great Britain, Matador, Kibworth Beauchamp, 2017, ISBN 978 1785893 537, pages 207 and 208Barclay-Harvey, pages 45 to 48E F Carter, An Historical Geography of the Railways of the British Isles, Cassell, London, 1959, page 293
The GNoSR had promised a subscription of £50,000 towards the Formartine and Buchan company; Ross comments that the company "was pouring loans and subscriptions into companies which were incapable of repaying or yielding the necessary return, and in whose accounts, prepared by the [GNoSR itself], the debts were kept concealed".David Ross, The Great North of Scotland Railway: A New History, Stenlake Publishing, Catrine, 2015, ISBN 978 1 84033 701 3, page 42
During the parliamentary process, Lord Saltoun succeeded in inserting a condition in the authorising act, requiring a station to be constructed and operated where the line was to cross the avenue leading from Cairnbulg Road to the mansion house. The station at Philorth was stipulated to be for the sole use of his lordship, his heirs and successors, who would have the right to have all passenger and goods trains stopped on request.
The act had indicated a branch line to serve Ellon, but it was decided that the through line could more conveniently be deviated to serve that place, obviating a separate branch, and an amending act of Parliament, the (22 Vict. c. xii) was obtained on 19 April 1859.
Construction and opening
Subscription to the share issue was very slow in coming; although the company hoped to open its line to Peterhead in the autumn of 1860, severe weather delayed the work. The bridge over the River Ythan collapsed while under construction on 3 February 1861, and the company decided to complete the line as far as a temporary terminus at Old Deer first. That section of the route was opened on 18 July 1861.Ross, page 56
The opening of this section of the line is reported in the Aberdeen Press and Journal for 24 July 1861.This new line - forming, probably, the most important Branch of the Great North of Scotland Railway - was opened for general traffic on Thursday. The line joins the Great North at Dyce Junction, which is distant from Aberdeen six and a half miles. The Stations on the line, and their distances from the Junction, are as follows :- Parkhill 1¼ miles; New Machar, 5¼ miles; Udny 8¼ miles; Ellon 13¼ miles; Arnage 16¾ miles; Auchnagat 20¾ miles; Brucklay 25½ miles; and Old Deer and Mintlaw Station, the present terminus, 29 miles....The two principal bridges are those over the Don and Ythan. The former of these is of three arches of span, the height from the surface of the water to the soffit of the centre arch being about twenty-six feet. The bridge over the Ythan is of three arches, with an additional dry arch at the south end. These arches are in span, and the clear height of the centre one is . The heaviest cutting is on the north side of New Machar - it extends to about half a mile in length - and the greatest depth is . Then on the south end of the Ythan bridge, there is a considerable cutting, the greatest depth being . Directly north of Ythan there is an embankment in height, and then cuttings of considerable length. From Dyce to Ellon the fencing is of larch; and from Ellon to Mintlaw of wire, and, with the gates all through it is the work of Messrs Harper & Co. Aberdeen. The accommodation at the various stations is particularly good. They were erected by various tradesmen. Messrs Smith & Ramage furnished the clocks. The gradients on the line are favourable, not averaging over all higher than 1 in 150, while the steepest on the route is 1 in 75. The curves in general are easy, the quickest curve being 1 in 30 chains or three-eights of a mile; and the draining of the line is generally very complete. The engineer, we may observce, is Alexander Gibb, Esq., and Messrs Milne and Leslie are contractors. Mr. A. Stephen Wilson has been resident engineer between Dyce and Ellon; and Mr. A Fraser - now resident engineer and inspector of way on the Great North line - resident engineer between Ellon and Mintlaw.
Investment finance slowly became available, and the line through to Peterhead was opened on 3 July 1862. The GNoSR had contributed £50,000 to the construction cost of the line. The passenger terminus was some way out of the town to the north-west, and was described as being "practically in the country".Ross, page 64
An extension three-quarters of a mile long, was opened on 9 August 1865, to enable goods trains to reach Peterhead harbour. The extension swept round the north of the town, reaching the north and south harbours from the north; the work cost £5,000, excluding land purchase.Ross, page 78
Lack of subscription funds had prevented progress on the construction of the Fraserburgh branch, and in fact the company had considered abandoning it. However it decided to alter the route, branching from the Peterhead line at Brucklay (later named Maud) passing through Strichen, and keeping to the east side of Mormond Hill. This required the (26 & 27 Vict. c. clxxxix), passed on 21 July 1863. The branch was opened on 24 April 1865.
Early train services For some time three or four services each way ran between Aberdeen and Peterhead and Fraserburgh. Stops were made at all stations, and the journey time varied from to hours; Peterhead and Fraserburgh portions of the trains at joined and separated at Maud. The volume of traffic was such that the main line was doubled between Kittybrewster and Dyce, this being commissioned in July 1861.
Amalgamation
In 1865 the GNoSR operated a network of lines, but more than 75% were owned by small subsidiary companies; this arrangement was increasingly considered unsatisfactory. On 30 July 1866 the Great North of Scotland Railway (Amalgamation) Act 1866 (29 & 30 Vict. c. cclxxxviii) was passed, bringing these companies into the GNoSR. As of 30 November 1865 the Formartine and Buchan directors reported gross revenue of £25,915, expenses of £13,960, and interest charges of £7,009. The residual profit of £5,216 allowed an ordinary dividend of % after the 5% preference dividend. The Formartine and Buchan Railway shares had been guaranteed financially by the GNoSR, and the special GNoSR shares they now received as a result of the financial restructuring carried a corresponding guarantee.Vallance, page 65Ross, page 83
Peterhead Harbour of Refuge Railway
In 1884 work began on a large breakwater project at Peterhead, designed to protect Peterhead Bay. Stone for the breakwater was brought from Stirling Hill, about miles south of the breakwater's location, and a railway known as the Peterhead Harbour of Refuge Railway was constructed to convey the stone; it opened in 1887 or 1888, and was not commercially connected with the GNoSR. Peterhead prison opened in 1888 and from the following year convict labour was used in the quarry. The railway was properly constructed using signal boxes and the absolute block system. Prisoners were conveyed to the quarry in special passenger trains. Four Hunslet 0-6-0T locomotives were employed on the line. A second line was built on the north side of the bay in connection with the North Breakwater about 1910. The Quarry line to the South Breakwater continued in existence until the 1950s.
Dominance of fish traffic In the mid-1870s there was a remarkable rise of the herring catch off eastern Scotland. The number of herring boats operating from GNoSR ports increased accordingly, with 736 at Fraserburgh and 621 at Peterhead. As well as the actual fish traffic, there were a considerable number of passenger journeys of the crews travelling home.Ross, page 101
Fish traffic to London was especially profitable, and when the 1879 fishery reports showed that Fraserburgh and Peterhead were exporting large amounts of fish to Baltic ports, the GNoSR made arrangements to charter a steamer at Aberdeen and quote the fish-sellers a through rate by rail from the Buchan ports to Aberdeen and thence to Stettin (as it was then called), undercutting the smaller vessels.Ross, pages 103 and 122
Traffic on this line was very seasonal; the herring season on the north coast was from June to August, but the season in East Anglia was later, and the crews migrated every year accordingly.St Combs Branch Line by "W.R.S.", in The Story and Tales of the Buchan Line, compiled by Alan H Sangster, Oxford Publishing Co, Poole, 1983, , pages 70 to 73 Before the decline of whaling in the 1880s whale and seal oil was sent from Peterhead to Dundee for use in the jute industry.Regional History, page 188
The London fish traffic was also prominent, particularly during the war years when it was necessary to minimise coastal The cattle market in Maud was exceptionally busy and generated much traffic in the transport of cattle to southern markets.
Acworth, writing in 1890, described the traffic of the line: