Buckie railway stationBanffshire Sheet II.SW. Publication date: 1905. Date revised: 1902.
/ref> was one of two stations which once served the town of

Buckie Buckie ( gd, Bucaidh) is a burgh town (defined as such in 1888) on the Moray Firth coast of Scotland. Historically in Banffshire, Buckie was the largest town in the county until the administrative area was abolished in 1975. The town is the t ...

, in the parish of

Rathven Rathven ( sco, Raffin) is an ecclesiastical parish, village and former civil parish in the historic county of Banff, now in Moray, Scotland. The civil parish was last used as a census subdivision in 2001 when the population was 12,378, The for ...

, Scottish county of Moray. This

Highland Railway The Highland Railway (HR) was one of the smaller British railways before the Railways Act 1921, operating north of Perth railway station in Scotland and serving the farthest north of Britain. Based in Inverness, the company was formed by merger ...

station was served by trains on the Buckie and Portessie Branch north of

Keith Keith may refer to: People and fictional characters * Keith (given name), includes a list of people and fictional characters * Keith (surname) * Keith (singer), American singer James Keefer (born 1949) * Baron Keith, a line of Scottish barons ...

until 1915 and remained open for freight until April 1944.

History

Work had begun on the Keith to Portessie line of the

on 7 November 1882. The station was opened by the

in 1884 to serve the sizeable town of

but had a short life with services being suspended during World War I on 9 August 1915 In 1917 the track between Aultmore (towards Keith) and

Portessie Portessie ( sco, Peterhythe or The Sloch) is a small fishing village east of Buckie, on the north-east coast of Scotland. It is commonly nicknamed "the Sloch", due to the name of the original settlement being Rottenslough. The village is sandwich ...

was requisitioned by the Admiralty and the rails south of

removed as far as Aultmore, although it was the intention to reinstate the track and restart services when the war ended. The north and south sections of line were re-opened by 1919 but the central section of the line was still without track in 1923, when the

was absorbed by the London, Midland and Scottish Railway (LMS). After this amalgamation the track between Buckie and Aultmore was relaid, however services were not restarted and the track removed again in around 1937. The line to Aultmore became the terminus of a goods spur from Keith and continued in use until 1966 and the separated stub from Buckie to

survived until 1944 in isolation from the rest of the, by then, London, Midland and Scottish Railway (LMS) system. The construction of the GNoSR Moray coast route had ''"effectively doomed the Highland route. Westbound journeys were shorter via the GNSR, and although the route to Aberdeen was longer, the Moray Coast Railway had services that were faster, more frequent and more convenient, with through trains running from Elgin, along the coast and to Aberdeen. As a rather straggly branch line, the Highland route struggled to compete, and the population between Buckie and Keith was too sparse to provide much additional traffic."''Long Lost Railways
Accessed : 2015-01-23

Infrastructure

The station was accessed via East Cathcart Street and stood near the old Cluny Rope and Sail Works and the United Free Church. In the late 1930s it had a single platform, and a sizeable station building which was probably similar in design to the nearby

Rathven railway station Rathven railway station was a station which served the hamlet of that name, about a mile away in the parish of Rathven, Scottish county of Moray. It was served by trains on the Buckie and Portessie Branch north of Keith. History The station ...

building. The station agent had a cottage here, a goods shed was on one siding and two other sidings were present in the goods yard.Banffshire Sheet II.SW Probable Publication date: ca. 1949. Date revised: 1938
/ref> In 1902 the station additionally had a signal box on the

end of the platform and a weighing machine was located in the goods yard. The station was designed by Murdoch Paterson who also designed the station itself.RCAHMS site record
/ref>Scottish Architects
/ref>

The site today

In 2011 the goods shed and the station agent's house still stood.

References

Footnotes

Sources

* * * *
Flickr A photograph of Rathven station
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External links

Disused railway stations in Moray Railway stations in Great Britain opened in 1884 Railway stations in Great Britain closed in 1915 Former Highland Railway stations Buckie