| Edinburgh & Dalkeith Railway | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Legend
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The Edinburgh and Dalkeith Railway, also called the Innocent Railway, was Edinburgh's first railway. It carried coal from the mines in Lothian to its city centre terminus at St Leonards. It is now closed.
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It received royal assent on 26 May 1826 as a horse-drawn tramway to the Scotch gauge, of 4 ft 6 in (1,372 mm), to link various coal mines to the south east of Edinburgh.[1][2]
The original Act of Parliament authorised £10,125 of joint stock capital, and the main line was opened in part for traffic in July 1831.[1][2] Further parts were opened in October, with passengers first being carried in July 1832.
Two further Acts were obtained; the first Act on 4 June 1829, raising £8,053, sanctioned the Leith Branch, running from Niddrie to Leith.[1][3] The second Act, in 1834, raised £54,875, authorising further branches to Fisherrow and Musselburgh, and allowing a certain amount of passenger traffic by horse-drawn railway coaches.[1][3]
The line was commissioned by a business consortium led by Walter Montagu-Douglas-Scott, 5th Duke of Buccleuch (1806 – 1884), with the engineering plans being contributed by Robert Stevenson (1772 – 1850), a civil engineer celebrated for his work on lighthouses. The cast iron bridge was designed by James Jardine (1776 – 1858).
Due to the success of the enterprise, the North British Railway had to pay £113,000 for the line, with the sale being completed in October 1845.[2] It was subsequently converted to standard gauge, reopening in July 1847.[2]
The railway line started life as a horse-drawn, coal carrying, tramway linking a number of collieries to Edinburgh and the Firth of Forth. It initially ran between South Esk and St Leonards; some 8¼ miles (13 km) in length.[1] It opened on 4 July 1831 and was laid as a double track.[2][4]
The final St Leonards section included a gravity-operated incline, which passed through a 572 yard (515 m) tunnel lit by gas lamps.[1][2] The incline had a gradient of 1 in 30 and was worked by a stationary steam winding engine. [3]
The branch to Fisherrow Harbour, Musselburgh, on the Firth of Forth, opened in October 1831.[1][4]
The Leith branch was partially opened in March 1835 and fully brought into use in July 1838.[3][4]
The Innocent Railway is now a cycle path connecting central Edinburgh, at Newington and St. Leonard’s at its west end, with Duddingston, Niddrie and Craigmillar to the east. The path continues, directly linking Bingham and Brunstane.
The route has what might be Britain’s first railway tunnel built around 1830 by James Jardine, which stretches 350 yards under the southern edge of Holyrood Park and is open to the public, forming part of the cycle route through the park. There is also a cast iron bridge at the Duddingston Road junction which is one of the earliest surviving examples of its type. The route passes very near to, and affords a view of, the Scottish Wildlife Trust property of Duddingston Loch.
A public information plaque at the entrance to the path reads thus:
| “ | 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. |
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Parts of the Edinburgh and Dalkeith railway are to be reopened as part of the Waverley Line, a re-opening of part of the former new Waverley Route between Edinburgh and Carlisle.
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