ON a November Saturday in 1958 the Lauder Light Railway saw its first passenger train since the pre-war Sunday school specials. It was also the last.
The railway ran between Fountainhall Station on the main Edinburgh Waverley route, through the ancient royal burgh of Lauder (first chartered in the 12th century) and the Borders to Carlisle.
The Branch Line Society had secured from British Railways a special train to take members, friends and sympathisers on a farewell trip over the line. Some 150 people were on board, to say nothing of the scores of lineside spectators, and print and TV journalists,
The Lauder Light Railway, known to enthusiasts as the Auld Lauder Licht, opened as Scotland’s first light railway in July 1901. It paid a dividend every year until its merger in the London and North Eastern Railway ‘grouping’ of 1923. Passenger traffic on the line ceased in 1932; freight continued until September 30, 1958, when the line was closed prior to being torn up.
Photographers found much to record on the final journey, from the opening (right, by guard Herbert Romanes) of the hand-operated level crossing over the Edinburgh–Galashiels road, to the press of people (above), trying to board the train at Oxton. Among them was John Leeming, who had worked on the original construction of the line.
At Lauder, Provost A.R. Jolly made a short speech, regretting the line’s closure, and on the locomotive’s smokebox he hung the branch line society’s wreath of holly and yew.
Among the passengers on the return trip to Edinburgh was ex-Provost James Watson, of Lauder, who, with his twin brother Duncan, had been a passenger on that first train of 1901.
Read more: Herald Diary
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