The Smeaton railway branches of the Lothians

The Smeaton railway branches of the Lothians were a group of railway branches in East Lothian and Midlothian, Scotland, in the area between Dalkeith and Haddington.

The Duke of Buccleuch's Tramway was opened in 1837 from Dalkeith to Smeaton and Cowden; it was a horse drawn waggonway, with a prodigious viaduct, the Victoria Bridge, over the River South Esk.

When the North British Railway purchased and modernised the nearby Edinburgh and Dalkeith Railway, there was a call to modernise Buccleuch's railway too, and this culminated in the Monktonhall, Ormiston and Dalkeith Railway, built by the North British Railway. This ran from Monktonhall Junction, on the Edinburgh to Dunbar main line, to Smeaton. There was an eastward branch from Smeaton to Macmerry and a southerly branch from Smeaton passing Dalkeith to the Hawick line. These lines opened in 1866 - 1869, and passenger trains ran from Macmerry to Edinburgh from 1872.

Finally the Gifford and Garvald Light Railway was opened from Ormiston to Gifford in 1901; it never reached Garvald.

Considerable coal mining activity was taking place around Smeaton and Ormiston, but the remainder of the lines traversed sparsely populated terrain, and the lines were not successful commercially. Closure to passengers took place in 1925 and fully in 1933. Goods closure followed in the 1950s, with short sections retained for colliery access until 1980.

Untapped coal There were known deposits of coal in the area of East Lothian east and south of Haddington; the heavy mineral needed an efficient transport medium to take it to the point of consumption. The Haddington branch of the North British Railway came close to the locality of the pits, but not close enough. When the North British Railway was being designed, competing proposed railways attempted to include it in their scope, and the Tyne Valley Railway and the East Lothian Railway both included the untapped coal fields, as well as lime for improving soil, and agricultural products, in their prospectuses. Those railways were promoted in the heady days of the 1845 railway mania and they collapsed as the bubble was burst the following year.Andrew M Hajducki, The Haddington, Macmerry and Gifford Branch Lines, Oakwood Press, Oxford, 1994,

Dalkeith

A tramway already connected some of the coal deposits at the western margin of the coalfield (partly in Midlothian): the Duke of Buccleuch had constructed a 4 feet 6 inches gauge tramway that extended from the Dalkeith branch of the Edinburgh and Dalkeith Railway (which was also built to that gauge, and was horse operated). His tramway opened in 1837 and involved a prodigious viaduct crossing of the South Esk:

The Dalkeith branch, which is the exclusive property of His Grace the Duke of Buccleuch, and was intended solely for the benefit of that town, was opened in the end of 1838. However desirable, it seemed, for some time, impracticable to extend this branch to His Grace's coal-fields, in the neighbourhood of Cowden. But these obstacles were soon surmounted; the intervening properties were purchased, and a magnificent viaduct had been erected at great expense over the vale of the South Esk. The bridge consists of six arches; the two arches at the extremities of the bridge are each of 110 feet span; and the four intermediate arches are each of 120 feet span. The arches are built of the best Dantzick timber, and rest upon stone piers of hewn ashlar. The height, from the ordinary water-mark, to the road-way, is 78 feet; the whole length is 830 feet; and the entire width of road-way between the railings is 14 feet. The whole structure is of the most tasteful architecture, and imparts a highly picturesque character to the surrounding scenery.The Statistical Account of Edinburghshire, William Blackwood and Sons, Edinburgh, 1845

Buccleuch's tramway ran from the Dalkeith station of the Edinburgh and Dalkeith Railway, running east through the streets of Dalkeith, crossing the present day Buccleuch Street and Newmills Road diagonally to the location of the Elmfield ironworks of William Mushet. It then turned north-east to the South Esk Bridge, named Victoria Bridge; it was immediately south of the present-day Musselburgh Road bridge. The tramway then forked, running south-east to serve Cowden coalpit, and north to Smeaton Colliery (belonging to the Marquis of Lothian) and Smeaton Brick Works.

Edinburgh and Dalkeith upgraded In 1845 the Edinburgh and Dalkeith Railway (E&DR) was sold to the North British Railway (NBR), which had not yet opened any of its lines. The wanted to build a line from Edinburgh to Carlisle, and acquiring the line and upgrading it to main line standards was a first step. The upgrading included conversion to standard gauge; the Duke of Buccleuch did not convert his line, so that a break of gauge was created at Dalkeith, requiring transshipment of loads there.

The operation of the former Edinburgh and Dalkeith Railway as a modern main line with steam traction emphasised the obsolete technology of the duke's line, and ideas of modernisation began to take hold. As the North British Railway became the dominant railway company in the district, it fell to them to propose the work.

The Monktonhall, Ormiston and Dalkeith Railway They did so in the 1862 session of Parliament, when they put forward not an upgrade of Buccleuch's line, but a new railway from Monktonhall to Hardengreen Junction on the line to Hawick. It was referred to as the Monktonhall, Ormiston and Dalkeith Railway. It would pass through Smeaton and skirt the south-eastern margin of Dalkeith; and it would have a branch line eastwards from Smeaton to Ormiston. The residents of Dalkeith had long felt aggrieved at being on a branch line from the main line, and this did something to assuage their feelings. More importantly, the line connected several areas of colliery workings.

It was described in the bill as consisting of two branches:

The first commenced at a point on the main line... called Monktonhall. Thence it passed to Smeaton, a farm on the estate of the Duke of Buccleuch, where there were tileworks, and from that point it ran up the valley of the Tyne, opening up a very rich agricultural district. Passing a great number of coal-pits, it proceeded eastward to Pencaitland, where there was a congregation of coal-works, and it then turned northward to a blast-furnace, at a place called Macmerry, where it terminated. The second branch commenced at Smeaton, where it joined the first, and ran southward to Hardengreen, on the Hawick branch of the North British Railway. At the present time there were 50,000 tons of goods annually coming off the North British main line from East Lothian, passing on to the Hawick branch and so proceeding southwards.Glasgow Morning Journal: 7 April 1862

There seemed to be no opposition to the line locally, and the North British Railway were surprised to find objections to the proposal from Andrew and John Wauchope.Ross refers on page 57 to Sir John Don Wauchope and Mr Dick. Sir John later became a prominent shareholder of the North British Railway. The men were brothers, and they owned extensive estates near Niddrie and Edmondstone. John Wauchope had been the owner of the Edmonston (or Edmondstone) Railway, opened 1818,Bertam Baxter, Stone Blocks and Iron Rails, David & Charles, Newton Abbot, 1966 and their estates had been crossed by the Edinburgh and Dalkeith Railway, which superseded the Edmondstone Railway. As a result, they received a tonnage toll for traffic crossing their lands. They now argued that the Monktonhall line was promoted to deprive them of their rightful income, and they petitioned Parliament.

Only two petitioners appeared against the bill-- the Messrs Wauchope. Neither of these gentlemen had an inch of ground upon the proposed lines... Their claim originated many years ago, in connection with the horse tramway between Edinburgh and Dalkeith... [Their counsel contended] that the real object of the bill was, not to accommodate the public, but to get rid of the toll payable to his clients by diverting the traffic to another and more circuitous route.

The naturally argued their line was simply a means of accommodating public demand, but they saw that the mood was against them, and the following week it was announced that

The North British Railway had come to the following agreement with the Messrs Wauchope: That the sum of £1,000 annually should be paid to each of those gentlemen [as compensation]... The arrangement was to be embodied in an agreement, and also in a clause to be introduced in the present or some other bill of the North British Railway Company.Edinburgh Evening Courant: 9 April 1862

The North British Railway (Branches) Act 1862 (25 & 26 Vict. c. xlix) received royal assent on 3 June 1862; the lines were now described as the Monktonhall branch (from Smeaton to Monktonhall Junction); the Ormiston branch (from Smeaton to Macmerry); and the Dalkeith branch from Smeaton to Hardengreen Junction.John Thomas, The North British Railway, volume 1, David & Charles, Newton Abbot, 1969, Smeaton was no more than a farmstead, but now it was to be the hub of these lines. The final part of the Ormiston branch, approaching Macmerry, ran alongside an earlier tram road that ran from Pencaitland Colliery to the coast. The Dalkeith branch included the obligation to acquire the Duke of Buccleuch's tramway, and it may be that the original intention was simply to upgrade parts of it. There was some delay before work started, possibly because of negotiations with Buccleuch and a possible redesign, but in 1865 construction started; this included a new bridge structure over the South Esk.

The people of Dalkeith petitioned the North British Railway at this point for the line to be made double track. Initial designs had shown this but the had scaled them back. The petitioners were apparently mollified by a promise that the line would be doubled when the traffic increased so as to require it.

Work was progressing on the South Esk bridge; the earlier tram road piers were used and built up after the timber arches were removed. A lattice girder superstructure was erected.

Opening

The first section of the line, from Monktonhall Junction to Thornleybank (just east of Dalkeith) was opened to goods and mineral traffic on 23 December 1866.David Ross, The North British Railway: A History, Stenlake Publishing Limited, Catrine, 2014, As the contractor was still working on parts of the line elaborate working instructions were published to avoid a collision between the daily service train and the contractor's works.

On 1 May 1867 the Macmerry branch was opened as far as Ormiston, and the entire Macmerry branch was opened on 19 March 1869. The new Victoria bridge was of course the delaying factor in opening through to Dalkeith and Hardengreen Junction, but this was accomplished on 31 July 1870.

As yet no passenger trains were running; it was not until 1872 that passenger trains from Macmerry to Edinburgh started running, from 1 May; there were three trains a day, six days a week. The section from Smeaton to Hardengreen Junction was very sparsely used, and the North British gave up on the idea of running passenger trains there. The original aim was to run freight trains towards Carlisle from East Lothian, but after initial enthusiasm, it seems that traffic estimates were inadequate. Similarly, as the route faced from Dalkeith towards Peebles, the line was inconvenient in supporting any significant traffic flow.Some through excursion trains traversed the route. Traffic from Dalkeith to Edinburgh was already served directly over the original line to Niddrie. In 1896 the sole intermediate signal box between Smeaton and Hardengreen Junction, at Thorneybank, was abolished. The local heavy industry declined as it was concentrated at other centres, and mineral traffic all but vanished on this southern section.

Gifford and Garvald