Summary
From 1800 the city of Edinburgh had an increasing appetite for coal; although there were coal pits a few miles away, the roads of the time were inadequate, and the horse-and-cart journey added substantially to the cost to the user. Coal owners with pits in the Dalkeith area got together and formed a railway to carry their coal to the capital. It was designed for horse-drawn operation, with an Edinburgh terminal, called St Leonard's, on the south side of Salisbury Crags. The location was chosen for simplicity of land acquisition, and the coal would in any case need to be distributed in the city. However, reaching the location involved a tunnel on a steep gradient, and wagons were hauled up and lowered by rope operation controlled by a steam engine. The line was opened in 1831 from St Leonards to Dalhousie Mains, with a branch line to Fisherrow, a small harbour just to the west ofFormation
The city of Edinburgh had an accelerating demand for coal in the early years of the nineteenth century, rising from 200,000 tons per year in 1800 to 350,000 in 1830. Coal in the immediate locality was of poor quality and of limited quantity. Better coal was being brought in from Fife and Tyneside by coastal shipping, and from Monklands by the Union Canal. The Duke of Buccleuch had coal pits in the Dalkeith area with superior coal, but road transport to the capital cost 4Promoters
The railway was a public company, but the five coal-owners who would benefit from the line were the dominant shareholders: Sir John Hope, the Marquis of Lothian, John Grieve (presumably as proxy for theFirst openings
The opening of the line was much delayed by difficulties which the contractor had not foreseen and which he had not sufficient capital to enable him to surmount. The main line opened from St Leonard's to a coal pit at Craighall on 4 July 1831; this was probably close to the present-dayExtensions and branches
The Marquis of Lothian's Waggonway
The Marquis of Lothian had coal pits on the south-eastern side of the South Esk river, at Arniston. He constructed an extension to the pits from the Edinburgh & Dalkeith Railway (E&DR) terminus at Dalhousie Mains at his own expense, a distance of . This required a bridge over the South Esk; the total length was . The line was named "The Marquis of Lothian's Waggonway", and the first part opened on 21 January 1832, running east from the South Esk viaduct to reach pits at Bryans, immediately east of Newtongrange. This section is shown as "tramroad" on early maps. Priestley refers to the E&DR raising an additional £7,815 for a short extension at Eskbank. Later an extension forking southwards from the viaduct reached Lingerwood Colliery, and eventually reached as far south as Arniston Engine.Leslie James, ''A Chronology of the Construction of Britain's Railways, 1778 - 1855'', Ian Allan Limited, Shepperton, 1983, The pit at Lingerwood eventually became Lady Victoria Colliery and Newbattle Colliery, later with a considerable internal branch line between them and the main line. The pit at Arniston Engine was served by a tramway branch from Arniston, on the main line, which is located just short of Gorebridge station.Ordnance Survey, One-inch Survey, Sheet 32, "Edinburgh", published 1857; and 25-inch mapping: ''Edinburghshire, Sheet 014.07'' etc, surveyed 1892 In compensation for the expense, the Marquis was allowed to use the North Esk viaduct on the E&DR for his coal free of charge.Leith
In March 1835, the E&DR opened a branch (authorised by Act of 4 June 1829 from Niddrie to a terminus at Constitution Street inDalkeith branch
The E&DR made a branch from the south end of the North Esk viaduct curving round east and north-east into Dalkeith, opening in the autumn of 1838. "Date uncertain".Duke of Buccleuch's railway
The Duke of Buccleuch owned coal pits at Smeaton and Cowden, north-east of Dalkeith. Like the Marquis of Lothian, he extended the line at his own expense to reach his pits in 1839. His line diverged from the Dalkeith branch just before the terminus, and crossed a large viaduct, "Victoria Bridge", over the South Esk; the line then forked to the two groups of pits.Route descriptions
Priestley, writing in 1828,Joseph Priestley, ''A Historical Account of the Navigable Rivers, Canals, and Railways, of Great Britain'', Longman, Rees, Orme, Brown & Green, London, 1831, accessible aThis railway commences on the south side of the city of Edinburgh, near Salisbury Craigs, icfrom whence it proceeds in an eastwardly direction, skirting the King's Park; thence, on the south side of Duddingston House, and by the village of Hunters Hall, to Redrow, where it communicates with the Edmonstone Railway. It afterwards takes a southerly course by Miller Hill Row, to within half a mile of the west side of the town of Dalkeith, where it crosses the North Esk River; thence, to the banks of South Esk River, at Dalhousie Mains, near Newbattle Abbey, from whence, the last act .e. a second Act of Parliamentenables the company to extend it to Newton Grange. There is a branch from Wanton Walls to Fisher Row Harbour, on the Firth of Forth; another from Cairney to the collieries situate on the east side of the Esk, at Cowpits, near Musselburgh ; and another by a subsequent act, which extends to Leith Harbour.Whishaw says
The main line, which runs from the Edinburgh station to South Eske, is level for about half its length; and the remainder has an inclination of 1 in 234, the whole distance being miles … The Leith branch is level for about one-third of its length; and the remaining portions have inclinations of 1 in 300 and 1 in 69 respectively, the whole length being 4 miles … The Musselburgh branch .e. Fisherrowis altogether on an inclination of 1 in … In the main line we counted seven bridges over the railway, four bridges under, six level road-crossings … the main line being double throughout … There is one tunnel 572 yards in length, which is on the Edinburgh inclined plane … the Tunnel is lighted by twenty-five gas lamps … The gauge is 4 feet 6 inches … the rails are of the fish-bellied form, weighing 28 lbs to the yard … the whole way is laid with freestone blocks … Near outh Eskestation is a long wooden bridge, which carries the Marquess of Lothian's railway over the river Eske.
The inclined plane
Whishaw saysThe inclined plane near the station at Edinburgh has an inclination of 1 in 30; it is 1130 yards in length, the upper part being straight, and the lower part considerably curved. It is worked by two low-pressure condensing engines, with cylinders 28 inches diameter, stroke feet; average working-pressure, 5 lbs … consumption of fuel tons per diem … About 30 tons gross is the usual load drawn up, and five minutes the time occupied; the descending loads draw out the rope after them … The signals from the bottom of the incline are given by an air-tube, about inch diameter, with a small bell in the engine-house.The two steam engines were supplied by J. & C. Carmichael.
Rails
The company used cast-iron fish-bellied rails.David Bremner, ''The Industries of Scotland, Their Rise, Progress and Present Condition'', Adam and Charles Black, Edinburgh, 1869Coal
The E&DR was hugely successful, and was soon carrying 300 tons of coal every day. Coal for domestic and light industry use had been an expensive commodity, and the railway company went to great lengths to provide reliable coal deliveries, installing its own weighbridge at the St Leonards depot, and issuing certificates of quantity and quality for deliveries of its own "railway coal". As well as guaranteeing quality and quantity, the railway was able to quote a price for delivered coal, using a delivery system which it authorised itself.Passengers
Passengers had hardly been considered when the railway was being planned, but a businessman, Michael Fox (who had been dynamic in managing coal deliveries in the city) put "an old stagecoach on the line and on 2 June 1832 began a service of three return trips a day between St Leonards and the North Esk depot". In the first full month of operation, 14,392 passenger journeys were recorded, and in the second, 20,615, making 150,000 in the first year of operation for a revenue of £4,000. There were no intermediate station structures, but passengers joined and alighted from the coaches when they wished. However it is likely that from the outset, anyone could put a private carriage on the line for personal use, on payment of a toll. Rates for such usage appeared in the press later in 1831.M E Quick, ''Railway Passenger Stations in England Scotland and Wales—A Chronology'', The Railway and Canal Historical Society, 2002 Fox's enterprise was such a success that in 1834 the E&DR obtained powers to run its own passenger service and it took over Fox's operation in 1836. The passenger service ran from St Leonards to Dalhousie, and it was extended on to the Leith branch in 1838, running to Constitution Street there. Dalkeith was added to the passenger network in the autumn of 1839. Still using horse traction, this was a busier passenger operation than the Liverpool and Manchester Railway.Thomas quotes 469 (E&DR) to 378 (L&MR) "per mile of track"; this may be a calculation of passenger miles per week divided by network mileage. "In addition to timetable trains, private coaches could be hired from any station to any station at any hour of the day or night." During 1839 during evidence being given in Parliament, it was stated that the railway did not issue tickets because there were so many informal stopping places, and that some passengers declined to reveal their intended destination. Whishaw, probably writing in 1839, describes the station arrangements:The Edinburgh station and depot occupies about eight imperial acres. There is nothing worthy of notice in the buildings at this station... The South Eske station-house is built in the cottage style, and is of neat design... There is a general waiting-room, and one especially for ladies. Besides the terminal stations, there is a half-way stopping-place, which is at the divergence of the Leith branch t Niddrie It is to be observed, that the driver stops to take up or set down a passenger whenever required. At Leith there is merely a shed-building. The trains-guards are also constables... Each guard carries a bugle-horn, which he sounds lustily as occasion requires.
The Company's stock of carriages at present consists of thirty-four passenger-carriages ndeight luggage-vans... The passenger-carriages are of two kinds, closed and open; the closed carriages are in three compartments, each holding eight passengers. There are three doors only, which are on one side, the other side being entirely shut up... there is a seat in front and one behind, each of which will hold four persons, including the driver... The open carriages have no roofs, and are divided into two whole and two half compartments, the whole compartments holding eight, and the half compartments four passengers each.
There are eight trains leaving and eight trains arriving daily at the Edunburgh station. A passenger train consists usually of three carriages... Ascending the Leith Branch, two horses are required to one carriage; a boy rides on the leader, which is occasionally tripped up, and the boy is subject to sad accidents.By the years 1842–1844 the railway carried 807,779 passengers on the main line and 207,625 passengers on the Leith branch, amounting to just over 50% of total receipts on the line. Bremner, writing in 1869 and referring to the time before 1845, says:
any personshave pleasant recollections of holiday trips made over the line. Then, as now, people took advantage of the Fast Days ublic holidaysto spend a few hours outside the city, and it was no uncommon thing for the Dalkeith Railway to bear away four or five thousand pleasure-seekers on such occasions. The Musselburgh Races were also a fruitful source of revenue for the line. The passenger coaches were a sort of hybrid between the old-fashioned stage-coach and the modern orse-mnibus, and in summer the outside seats were the most popular.The north British Railway produced a map in 1844, which showed intermediate stations on the Edinburgh and Dalkeith system. It is not known whether the list was exhaustive; they may simply have been "selected" locations; moreover later contemporary publications did not mention them; but they were * Cairney; * Sherrifhall; * Portobello; * Niddrie Junction; and * Lasswade Road (at or near Eskbank). It is most unlikely that any of these "stations" had any facilities.
Absorption and reconstruction
A pioneering railway when it opened, the E&DR was being overtaken by technologically more advanced railways. By 1845 theLater railway developments
The NBR did not upgrade the E&DR line simply to reach Gorebridge; the destination was Carlisle, there joining with English railway companies and forming theCivil engineering structures
Braid Burn bridge
There is an originalSt Leonards Tunnel
The tunnel is Scotland's earliest tunnel on a public railway. It was bored (as a cutting was too great an expense) through volcanic rock and lined with Craigleith sandstone, with a semicircular cross-sectional top wide, and high at the crown; it is long. Construction took place from 1827 to 1830 and cost about £12,000. Jardine was the engineer and the contractor was Adam Begg. Originally the tunnel was lighted by gas lamps. It is now permanently lit by electricity as part of a cycle path project, and in constant use.Glenesk Bridge, Dalkeith
The bridge over the North Esk on the original main line is a fine single-span semicircular ashlar masonry arch with a span of . It was designed by James Jardine and attractively embellished with archivolts, tapering pilasters and extensive curved wingwalls. It was conserved in 1993 by the Edinburgh Green Belt Trust.Dalhousie (Newbattle) Viaduct
When the Marquis of Lothian built his waggonway southwards from the Dalhousie Mains terminal of the E&DR, he had to cross the South Esk river; he did so by a viaduct consisting of 24 spans of timber with three pointed arches in cast iron. It was designed by John Williamson in 1830 and opened on 21 January 1832. It was superseded when the North British Railway were extending southwards; they replaced it with a 23 span masonry viaduct with brick arch rings, completed in 1847 and still in situ.Cycle path
Part of the line has been converted to a cycle path, connecting central Edinburgh, at Newington, Edinburgh, Newington and St. Leonard’s at its west end, with"The Innocent Railway"
There are a number of different versions as to why the line was affectionately nicknamed '"The Innocent Railway". A commonly quoted explanation is that the line never suffered a fatal accident in its construction or operation, and there was a tablet erected naming the railway "The Innocent Railway" on that basis. However this explanation does not hold true as there are records of a number of fatal accidents on the line. Thomas explains:Dr Robert Chalmers, reflecting on the E & D trains jogging their leisurely and profitable way round the southern outskirts of Edinburgh and comparing them with trains on more sophisticated railways wrote, 'In the very contemplation of the innocence of the railway you find your heart rejoiced. Only think of a railway having a board at all the stations forbidding the drivers to stop by the way to feed their horses!' The name ''The Innocent Railway'' entered the history books and the legend grew that the line was so called because it never killed or injured a passenger. In fact injuries, whether to passengers alighting from trains in motion or to pointsboys taking chances at loops were numerous; the manager himself got a leg injury that left him with a limp for life.The name in fact seems to have stemmed from the public mistrust, at the time of operation, in steam engines for being too dangerous and too fast (at a time when horses provided the fastest mode of transport) and therefore a horse-drawn railway was seen as "Innocent". Robertson says:
Its familiar and affectionate soubriquet of the "Innocent Railway" was not due, unless inaccurately, to the legend that no-one was ever killed on it, but rather to an air of old-fashioned unreality which stood by the leisurely horse-drawn tradition long after it had been abandoned elsewhere.Robert Chalmers, who coined the nickname, gently enjoyed himself at its expense:
By the Innocent Railway you never feel in the least jeopardy; your journey is one of incident and adventure; you can examine the crops as you go along; you have time to hear the news from your companions; and the by-play of the officials is a source of never-failing amusement.Robertson goes on to observe that a driver was killed in 1840 and two children were killed in 1843 and 1844, citing Parliamentary Papers 1841, 1843 and 1846. A further explanation was put forward by Munro, although this seems unlikely: "The Company soon became known as the 'innocent Railway' because it did not issue tickets to travellers. At a Board of Enquiry the manager, Mr Rankine, explained that this was because the passengers could not, or would not, make up their minds as to their destination." A public information plaque at the entrance to the path states that,
You are standing on one of Scotland's pioneering Railways. The Edinburgh and Dalkeith Railway was nicknamed "The Innocent Railway" because it was originally horse-drawn in an age which thought steam engines dangerous. It was built to transport coal from the Dalkeith area to Auld Reekie. To the surprise of the promoters, however, the public rapidly took to this convenient novelty and soon 300,000 passengers were carried annually. Thereafter, passengers became as important as freight to the railways. Open carriages, wagons and converted stagecoaches were the first rolling stock. Among its engineering features were an early tunnel, a cast iron beam bridge and an outstanding timber viaduct on masonry piers. The first two still survive. The viaduct at Thornybank, Dalkeith was finally demolished in the 1960s.
Red Wheel plaque
In November 2021, a Red Wheel plaque was unveiled at the Holyrood Distillery, on the site of the former St Leonards station, to mark the railway's importance. Red Wheel plaques are installed by theNotes
References
Sources
* * * * Historic Environment Scotland (2019) ''The Innocent Railway'Further reading
*External links