In some ways Walter Scott _was_ 19th century Scotland - at least to the English. His portrayal of Scotland did much to "reboot" the country in the eyes of its southern neighbours, and make it fashionable. I suspect that the Scottification of the area around Waverley was partly to ensure that the first impression English visitors got had something to do with their favourite Scottish novelist.
The really funny part of this is that Scott took the name Waverley from a place in Surrey. It isn't Scottish at all. Also some of his interpretation of Scottish history should be seen as what it is: fiction.
Waverley an. "across the harbour" suburb of Dunedin... Dunedin - the "Edinburgh of the South" founded in 1848 by Free Kirk members led by the formidable Rev Cargill --is replete with suburbs and streets taken from Edinburgh Snr. We did the trip there from Kings Cross on GNER in Aug 2004 ,, and a couple of days later Scot-railed to Stirling. A beautiful city I thought Edinburgh, esp with the old buildings that had been cleaned of 400 years of coal smoke... Interesting to see the French-style tapered towers... what can I call them... on dignified houses... some of the "old money" families had houses like that still to be found in Dunedin....the Glendinnings, the Rosses, the Sideys....
It's impossible not to be impressed with this station and the city it serves. I first saw it in the early 70s in the middle of Winter. How gothic and dark and sooty it appeared then, how cold was the wind blowing down the wind tunnel that is Princes Street and how warm was the welcome from the old lady who ran the guest house in Morningside where I stayed. "Och, come in laddie, you must be cold, go into the sitting room, sit by the fire, and I'll bring in some tea..."🙂
One small correction - Only trains that approach from the west pass under the castle, trains coming up the East Coast Main Line approach from the east side of the station and don't pass under it. What's shown at 0:12 is the back of St Andrews House, with Governors House to the left.
I visited Edinburgh a number of times, but somehow the station got stuck in my memory as beeing a terminus with all the trains entering and leaving via Princess Street Gardens. Thanks to Mr. Hazzard and you that stands corrected now !
@@LeoStarrenburg it has 2 terminus sections. one terminus section that heads out through princes gardens. one terminus that heads to berwick. and then round both sides are the through platforms. its arranged like a capital H.
@DingoWoof Spot-on, the only notable services from the South that come in from the West, via Haymarket then beneath the castle ramparts are those up the West Coast mainline. It's pretty misleading for the voice-over to refer to the Castle when showing the back of St. Andrews House. For a moment I thought someone had turned my home city back to front!
Always makes me happy to see HSTs still sporadically working around. It's understandable that they had to be replaced due to their age and accessibility concerns, but their look is just so iconic.
Ah yes, and they continue being Really Useful Trains. Refurbished at Doncaster works, with new interiors, controlled emission tanks and automatic sliding doors, 26 HST sets now run services for Scotrail up to Dundee, Aberdeen and Inverness from Glasgow and Edinburgh, albeit in shortened form with 4 or 5 coaches.
Honestly, aside from the extreme height that the ramps get raised to, which I can’t hope to push myself up, I find the HST coach to be far more comfortable in my wheelchair than some of the modern multiple units! For one, there’s at least twice the space for the wheelchair passenger compared to a lot of modern designs! I’m very happy that the ones which didn’t retire are still operating fulltime between cities in the Scottish network 😊 (Of course, I would prefer level boarding on all my trains… but almost none of the new designs have that either, so I still need to ask someone for a ramp! As long as that’s still the case, I will always prefer an HST.)
My North British Story - in 1983 aged about 14, I went to a wedding reception at the North British Hotel for an Edinburgh cousin. I met my first girlfriend there. She was lovely and we had a brief long distance thing (such as a thing can be at 14). Not a bloody clue whatever became of her. She had a very rich mummy and daddy (something to do with fresh fruit wholesale I seem to remember) and was no fool herself, so I doubt she's on the streets.
Trains from the south pass Edinburgh Castle? Technically true as the sleepers, Avanti West Coast and Trans Pennine do. Majority of services, LNER, Cross Country and Lumo come in underneath the Governor's Office and the Scottish Government building as shown in the video. That's my little (Carlton) hill to die on....now for the rest of the video :)
1:50 I believe the tunnel connecting Waverley to Leith under St. Andrew's square still exists but it's fenced off. In the station there's a mysterious Iron grille set into the wall. The other end of the closed-off tunnel is in a play park at the foot of Scotland Street, and from there the disused line continues to Leith as a bike path. The entire feature is marked as NCR-75 on Google Maps.
Sorry to get pedantic but that line ran to Granton (and for a while the world's first train ferry to Fife), though it did connect to North Leith station on the NB. Most of the Waverley - Leith traffic ran through Abbeyhill. The Leith lines are a subject in themselves, with traditional madness like the South Leith stations (all 3 of them) being north of Leith Central.
@@PavlosPapageorgiou I know, I was brought up in the area. The line that used the tunnel originally went to Granton and linked with the ferry. Much of the track bed can still be seen.
I made my first visit to Edinburgh earlier this year. What a beautiful city. And a very interesting station, and area surrounding it. Thanks for not only an interesting video, Jago, but for immediately bringing back memories of a wonderful week in Edinburgh. I am now eagerly looking forward to your follow-up presentations.
It's amazing they built the castle right next to the station. Must have made army troop movements much easier. Good luck on Edinburgh Trams. Edinburgh used to have the biggest tram network in the world. Now it has a 1/3rd of a tram line. Not a "Tram Network". Not a "tram line".
@@JagoHazzard - the trams are a real pain, they are working on Leith walk for the 3rd time, they dug it up to get stuff sorted for the trams, then they decided to not put trams down leith walk so they dug it up to make it back to road with out the tram bits. They they decided to switch back to having trams down Leith Walk - and it makes any travel a real pain.
If you're covering Edinburgh railways, the Innocent railway might be worth a mention. There's not much left of it now other than the tunnel from St Leonards going out towards Duddingston, but the tunnel is still open as a pedestrian route. You can still see the remains of platforms and other buildings from the old suburban lines if you know where to look. There are also a few relics of Edinburgh's original tram system which was removed in the 1950s - a tiny section (only a few feet long) of cable tramway in Waterloo Place, the facade of the tram depot on Hanover Row, etc.
This summer I walked the Innocent from Duddingston Golf Course to the Commonwealth Pool with my golf clubs on my back. To paraphrase Mark Twain, It's a nice walk spoiled.
Just visited this station after my first stay in Edinburgh. It's quite the station, though making sense of the platform numbering was headache inducing.
They could have done a far better job if they'd kept things consistent. Instead they went mix and match. P1, 2 and 7 are the eastern ends of P20, 19 and 11. But 8 and 9 have east and west ends. And 18 is only accessible from within the ticket barriers, even though it comes right alongside 19, and should probably have a fence along it. Then there's P0 in Haymarket. That's not confusing for the tourists either 🤣
@@britishfilmguy - Yeah I think it was a safety thing to make trains more visible to p/way gangs, but the introduction of bright LED lighting made them redundant.
@@AtheistOrphan yeah plus anyone working trackside they can see a train coming, so with these fancy led lights yellow cab fronts aren't ad essential so opt for alternative colours like trans pennine with gloss black.
@@britishfilmguy - ‘anyone working trackside’ - That’s exactly whom I meant by ‘p/way gangs’. Perhaps I shouldn’t have used railway terminology but my late father was a lifelong railwayman and phrases such as ‘the p/way gangs were working in the four-foot and the cess’ are second nature to me and I often forget that they may not be understood by the general public at large! I suppose every industry has it’s own unique phraseology.
What a great capital city Edinburgh is. You walk out of Waverley station and you're in the main shopping centre of the city. Walk down Princes Street and there's the National Gallery on The Mound, only a short walk away in Chambers Street is the National Museum of Scotland. and you probably pass the National Library of Scotland on your way. The Castle itself dominates the gardens, a great location for train watchers, then St. Giles Catherdral's just on the Royal Mile. Walk down there to the Scottish Parliament and the Place of Holyroodhouse. And Waverley Station, whilst almost invisible at street level is a delight in itself. That lovely round roof light over the waiting area, the cast iron thistles in the capitals of the columns and the constant reminders of the North British Railway, like the War Memorial tablet have a wonderful ambiance, not to mention the announcer's accent. Thanks for giving it the exposure it deserves, torrential rain not withstanding!
Another gem, Jago. Scotland - the land of mountains, lochs and engineering- deserves to have such an exquisite railway station in the capital. One regret I have is that in 1969, the Waverley route was axed under the Beeching Plan. Linking Edinburgh with Carlisle via Galashiels and Hawick, and then further into England, it was a lifeline to folks in the Southern Uplands of Scotland. I know that part of it has reopened from near Galashiels to Edinburgh, but think of the difficulty of restoring the remainder of the route to Carlisle.
I was in Edinburgh in July. Waverly was a bit of a challenge to navigate at first, but once you get your bearings it's quite a lovely station. Of course, as an American, most major train stations in the UK are quite (no, not you Euston) lovely to me.
Great to see you make an Edinburgh-related video, look forward to the rest of them! The trams are definitely a great topic, a complete clusterfuck to make, extremely limited, but at the same time actually quite good. I think a Glasgow Central video would be interesting too. As you said it's the busiest station, and it has a lot of history. It's a beautiful building too, even if its immediate surroundings can be really quite unsavoury.
Well while we're on the subjects of Edinburgh trams and Glasgow Central it would seem rude to ignore Glasgow's own unique urban transit network.... the small, but perfectly-formed Subway. Do please consider covering that, Jago... it really is one of a kind!
I think we as Edinburgh citizens will be better placed to appraise the tram system once trams are actually running to and from Newhaven. Hopefully that isn't too far off. Goodness knows the locals along the route have suffered through the drawn-out construction saga.
@@ianmcsherry5254 very true, the whole thing has been an absolute palaver, even if the existing (extremely limited) line has imo been really quite good.
I was part of the team that was involved in the GEC General Signals electronic TDM communications of the signaling upgrade at Waverly in the late 70s, mainly for the route from Waverly over the forth rail bridge and on up to Lady Bank. TY for another excellent video that also helped bring back many memories.
If it's not London underground related, then the featured villain must be... George Hudson! (Cue green limelight, and pantomime booing) 😗 There's a story about Waverley which I recall reading: Sometime in the 20s, the veteran train timer EL Ahrons was heading back to London, but needed to make a tight connection at Waverley. His incoming train was late, and pulled in just as the London express was being flagged out on the opposite platform. Undeterred, Ahrons flung himself and his overnight bag across the platform, knocking one of the station staff off his feet. As Ahrons scrabbled aboard the moving train, he heard the porter calling after him "So- ye'll no' be stoppin long in the city the day then, sir?"
Naming locos after Walter Scott's writings was a great idea....it reached its culmination (in my opinion) with D11/2 4-4-0 no 62678 "Luckie Mucklebackit" and D30/2 no 62434 "Kettledrummle". These are far better than the dreadful corporate names some modern locos are saddled with
W.A. Tuplin suggested that "Luckie Mucklebackit" might represent the sound of the engine's motion in run down condition. Certainly a contrast with the respectable names of Great Central directors for the D10s and D11/1s. Gresley was prepared to build new locos to an existing design from another constituent line of the LNER as he felt they were the best solution for a need - honest and pragmatic.
I fully agree, Davil. In steam days, so many engines had terrific names. I once saw a power-car of an InterCity 125 named “Top of the Pops,” and it seemed such a weird effort.
Thanks! I lived in Edinburgh as a student in the 70’s, and spent many journeys on the trains up and down to London. I love trains. By the way, did you know that the huge clock on the now Balmoral Hotel is always set 5 minutes fast? It was done when the hotel was originally built , so that travellers wouldn’t miss their trains!
Waverley is one of my favourite stations I have visited, space a plenty, light and airy (sometimes too airy), all achieved in a below street level. Contrast with Birmingham New Street, which, despite being "modernised" remains a dark and dull place to have to visit.
To me and many commuting Scots the primary function of Waverley is actually connecting to Glasgow (then Stirling, Aberdeen etc.) rather than to England
Fun fact: Waverley Borough Council in Surrey is named after the abbey from which Scott took his use of the name. It had no Scottish associations and is 450 miles from Edinburgh.
Tales from the teams, looking forward to that. Edinburgh visits in my days in industry were usually a couple of times a year, we had Doulton shops in Jenner's department store and Lawley's. Around 1990 Mike Oldfield did an open air concert of Tubular bells in Edinburgh castle, a great gig, warm dry night and a fast drive home 250 miles to Staffordshire. Whilst in Edinburgh did you get to see the paddle steamer.
It is noteworthy that before Scott there was nothing called Waverley in Edinburgh at all. He named those novels after the ruined Waverley Abbey in South West Surrey, only 430 miles away!
The history of the suburban lines, their rise and fall, not to mention the vast number of industrial lines serving to coal fields, agricultural produce into, and horse poop out of the city, as well as the paper mills to name but a few, is endlessly fascinating. A lot of these now disused lines have been turned into cycle routes, and there is evidence of a lot of the old infrastructure in and around the city, if you know where to look!
One other point of correction ... the Waverley Line from Edinburgh to Carlisle was closed to passenger traffic in January 1969, and the line lifted very shortly thereafter. I'm not sure what services were cancelled in 1965, (was that suburban, eg to Corstorphine?) but passenger services to via Eskbank, Penicuik and Peebles were stopped in 1962 (thanks, Dr Beeching) and the line totally closed and lifted by 1969. I assume you travelled to Edinburgh by daytime train from London Kings Cross ... then you'd arrive from the east passing by Calton Hill and through one of the Calton Tunnels. You'd only pass by the Castle and through Princes St Gardens if you arrived from the west. I've arrived at Edinburgh station by sleeper last year by both routes. I won't mention the sudden brake failure ... oops.
The Gardens are quite pleasant just remember the 1pm gun. There is a brief history of The Railway King, George Hudson in the Cooper Rose, a wetherspoons in Sunderland
It's amazing how nice a station can be made from scratch - the ever-universal material used by builders throughout centuries! Nice day with sun after that rain shower adding extra drama to the video! Thanks Jago!
As someone born and bred in Edinburgh, it was such a surprise to see a Waverley vid appear! The station is interesting (Im old enough remember being able to drive down the ramps to platform level!) and it even had a shooting gallery at one time, but if you want real excitement, check out Glasgow Central instead. That was built ontop of a section of town, parts of which can still be seen underground if you take one of the guided tours. Ive spent the bulk of my life on the west coast, but having a father who was an avid Edinburgh trainspotter in the 50s, 60s, 70s and 80s, I have spent alot of time hearing his tales of the old goods yards and what Princes Street station was like. At least the "Cally" hotel survived the Princes Street cull - Glasgow lost St Enochs station and its huge termini hotel completely. You can still catch the underground at St Enochs (the infamous Clockwork Orange), but in hindsight, losing those 2 main stations was a massive loss to both cities.
I love Edinburgh too! Thank you for this very interesting history on the railway station and I shall feel far more enlightened when I arrive there next. I look forward to more videos on Edinburgh too.
Another factual correction Jago - the "Race to The North" didn't end at Edinburgh, it was to Aberdeen and in particular to Kinnaber Junction (north of Montrose) where the Caledonian and North British routes converged. The trains used for these races were overnight trains from Euston and King's Cross to Aberdeen. The signalman at Kinnaber was sometimes accused of favouring his own company train, but he had to give the road to whichever train was offered first by the preceding boxes on either route. Oliver Nock wrote a really good book about this in 1958 "Railway Race to the North" which may be out of print - I bought my copy last year in the Oxfam shop in Oban which had several shelves of railway books on sale. Some years ago Network Rail erected a sign at Kinnaber Junction commemorating its place in history, although it is now almost impossible to view it from a public road or space. You can glimpse it from a train if you sit on the right going south.
I have lovely memories of Waverly in 1978 and early 1980s. Class 26&27 locos, Swindon intercity units and the occasional Deltic on trains to and from London
Totally misread that platform sign towards the end as ‘Platform Be This Way’.. which sounds more like it should be hanging in Temple Meads than Waverley lol
The hotel certainly does have "NB" monograms everywhere in the interior - or it did decades ago when I used to stay there. They still had original furniture with NB carved into it, and they'd called one of the bars after Napoleon Bonaparte - Napoleon wasn't really best known for his work as a bar keeper so there must have been some other reason for that...
Oh dear. The majority of lines were not closed under the Modernisation Plan but the Bee hung Plan Part 1 (also called The Reshaping of British Railways). There were a few duplicated lines that Modernisation wanted to cut, but not that many.
Thanks for visiting this station, looking forward to the trams video. So much railway history in Edinburgh, the loss of Princes Street Station and what remains of it for one.
The novel Waverly is particularly apt for the station on the England to Scotland line. The novel is about an Englishman who journeys to Scotland to see a friend of his father and fights for the Jacobites before returning to the loyalist cause and marrying a Scottish woman.
Great Video! I was in Edinburgh this time last year for a semester. Came to Edinburgh by way of Edinburgh Waverley and went to many places in Scotland and England through there. Also used Haymarket a lot. In fact Edinburgh Waverley is the station I've used the most, cause I don't get to take many trains in the U.S. unfortunately. Great to know more about the history of it.
An interesting side note, in Virginia, USA, stations along the Norfolk Southern Railroad were also named for places in Scott's novel. Wakefield, Waverly, Windsor, Ivor, and Zuni are on NS's predecessor Norfolk and Petersburg Railway.
Additional trivia: And when the rail manager and his wife (who was helping him pick the names) couldn't decide on one of the names, they named it after their impasse: Disputanta, Virginia.
"Tales from McTube"? 😉 Love the thumbnail. I took a picture of that rooflight waiting to go home in January 2020. So lucky to have that week there before the proverbial hit the proverbial.
I used to write episodes of Balamory for BBC Scotland and have happy memories arriving at Waverley from Kings Cross once a month - mainly because it meant I was getting paid!
A very good video. You say that you plan to do a piece on the lost Caledonian station at Princes Street; would you be willing to do one about Haymarket as well? It's more user friendly if you want to visit the West End of the city, as you don't have to climb so far. It still retains the original Edinburgh & Glasgow Railway terminal building of 1842, which is quite a dignified one. This has survived despite being threatened from the 1960s onwards by replacement with a modern office block.
Haymarket has featured for many years in a classic train quiz question as a four-platform station where you can catch trains in opposite directions that go direct to London. (Likewise Exeter St Davids but that has 6 platforms. My old home station, Cosham, is another.)
My grandmother was an Edinburgh Scott of a family of repute from Morningside, a great deal of our family history centres around Edinburgh and Perth, my forebears founded the famous Watson academy of which my great grandfather was a teacher at him being a Scott, my great aunt was for years a teacher at Rottingdean and she remained unmarried a Scott, my great great grandmother with a fund from Watson's Academy helped establish many northern Scottish schools and I remember her consternation in a diary on the night of the great storm that brought down the Tay bridge, she was in her school house in Tongue and the wind ripped the roof clean away and she still held classes but more open to the elements as she believed learning waited for neither man nor weather and if it rained it rained. Also a Scott designed the mentioned Waterloo so we get about and it is a family tradition in my branch that the eldest male child is given Scott next to the surname, my grandmother being a Scott was given Watson next to her surname and when she married my grandfather who was a Watson she became a Watson-Watson... got to love Scottish naming conventions lol My grandparents who were unbeknown to them distant cousins met at the long gone Edinburgh terminus which name I forget, both were there awaiting their deployment and travel orders both in the navy, both heard Watson called out so both stood up and went to the CPO and they kept in contact via wireless as she was a WRNS radio operator and my granddad was a communications radio instructor at Scapa Flow.
The North British Hotel, now. New Balmoral. Mainly as almost everyone in Edinburgh called it the NB. So in fact as long as whatever it became it would still be known as the NB.
The building shown above the railway at the start of the video is not Edinburgh Castle (that is the other side of Waverley Station en route to Haymarket), but St Andrew's House and the remnants of the long -demolished Calton Jail, (which does look bit like a castle). The Waverley route to Carlisle closed in 1969 not 1965. The Flying Scotsman train still exists, albeit as a very early morning train in one direction only and covering the Edinburgh to Kings Cross route in just four hours.
Did you manage a wee peek at Haymarket station? When I lived in Edinburgh many years ago I worked by there - the air thick with the smell of malt and hops from the brewery next door. When it was very foggy we’d hear the sound of detonators on the lines! I did see the Flying Scotsman pass one day on a heritage outing.
That area - and the station especially - are dramatically different now. A Jago video on the station would be great - it’s the oldest station in Edinburgh, so a very interesting history. And a quirk of the rail network is that for ticketing, it and Waverley count as one station, though you can still buy a ticket between them.
The brewery is long gone except for the magnificent chimney stack. There's now an estate of flats there and I was fortunate to stay in one just recently.
If you're around Manchester at some point (and have the time of course, obviously you have been with the Bury station videos!) I feel you'll find the history of the two main stations there rather interesting. Victoria used to boast the longest single platform in the world when it was connected to Exchange Station next door. Piccadilly has seen several transformations too over the years.
Always interesting to hear a sympathetic sassenach take on an area I know intimately. As a Caley man I much preferred Edinburgh Princes St Well done. Don't do the trams until next Spring. I walked the route of the tram extension this morning and there is only c15m of track still to be concreted in but lots of hard landscaping too. A big scandal will be the tram enquiry if it ever gets published.
And the CalMac ferries. We see millions spent on consultants doing traffic forecasts, environmental impact studies and cost-benefit studies and all the other things 'expert' planners do. The Victorians had capitalist animal spirits. We end up with projects botched or done on the cheap, such as the Borders Railway, which take years longer than intended and cost twice or three times as much. The Victorians left us monuments of engineering brilliance which are also works of art, and without a 'professionally qualified' town planner in sight.
Having travelled from London to Edinburgh in 1970 to visit family, on the non stop service and we stayed at the railway hotel so we didn't have to lug our bags far from the station! 😁 I can tell you that the interesting thing for a young lad at the time was at night hanging out the window watching and listening to the trains arrive and depart the station. Especially on foggy nights. Much better on that side of the hotel than the other!
As the owner of one square meter, and now a fiercely proud Baird I loved my return to the home country! This station, the Museum in York, on the stop south, the hotel, the castle, the city, your video brings back joyous memories. HMY Britannia, the Forth Bridge, Balmoral, my flat overlooking the hanging spot and Last Drop, thank you for keeping Scotland, and England too, in my thoughts every little bell icon!
8:29 The actual train line to the north of Scotland via the Forth Bridge passes by the airport. All they had to do was add a mile of track and a station at the terminal. Instead we got a completely new tram line, at times running parallel to the train, built at great cost for urban renewal reasons.
The whole history of rail-air connections in Britain (and Ireland) is ludicrous. Ever since Croydon became the first international hub, the two modes have ignored one another or been only partially and belatedly linked. Heathrow was open for 31 years before it had any sort of rail service- a slow Tube into London- and still has fleets of coaches cluttering roads from Reading and Woking, bc you cannot get a train from the west of LHR into the terminals. As in Edinburgh, mainline rail routes run by the perimeter but are off limits to air passengers.
And at great cost to passengers travelling to the airport because there's a hefty surcharge on the short section between the last but one stop, Ingliston Park+Ride, and the Airport stop. Apart from that it's an impressive system even though it only has one line so far.
@@roderickjoyce6716 That leads to the silly spectacle of people riding the tram on a city fare up to the Park & Ride, then walking or taking the shuttle bus to the terminal.
@@roderickjoyce6716 Same deterrent approach at LHR. The fast service from Paddington is said to be the most expensive, mile for mile, in Europe. Before the Elizabeth Line opened there were byzantine rules about fare zones and availability of Oyster cards if you wanted to get a slower train into the sacred space. For all the promises about shifting Heathrow traffic off the roads, in reality access was exploited to milk visitors, as with the price-gouging and inferior restaurants. LHR is an environmental monstrosity which has become a profiteer's paradise.
Fun fact: the clock on the Balmoral Hotel is set five minutes fast at all times. The story goes, this is because it takes a few minutes to walk down to platform level from the street, so people travelling to the station get there with enough time to also reach the trains. Except for once a year at Hogmanay (New Year's Eve), where the clock is set back to the correct time so it corresponds with the bells and celebrations at midnight. EXCEPT between 2020 and 2021, where the owners of the Balmoral basically said "no one needs five extra minutes of 2020 so we're leaving it running fast"
Just picked up on this one. Thanks - I think this is one of your best. I tend to get a bit bored with many RU-vid vids after about 5 minutes - butterfly mind, but I watched this one right to the end.
The Edinburgh & Glasgow Railway were in fact more responsible for the naming of Waverley, and the Scottish part of the ECML, and it was largely down to one man. No, not George Hudson. In January 1842, six Edinburgh financiers were given a tour of Haymarket station and train shed (then adjacent to the station, approximately where "Plaform Zero" is today), one month before the E&G were due to open from there to Glasgow (yes, Haymarket predates Waverley by four years). These financiers wanted to build a line from Edinburgh to Dunbar, primarily for the transport of coal and fish. E&G Chairman, John Learmonth, told them they lacked vision, and why aim for Dunbar, when the east coast companies were building to Berwick-upon-Tweed. He told them, "I invisage a north British triangle", this triangle taking in Edinburgh, Berwick, and Carlisle (thereby setting the scene for the later building of the Waverley Route). According to John Thomas in his two part history, "The North British Railway", the financiers agreed on a name, they were handed a minute book, and at the top of the first page, the appointed secretary wrote "The North British Railway Company, Minute Book No.1". Having thus formed an early alliance with the E&G, the NBR opened their main line from Edinburgh to Berwick on 18 June 1846 (they had also by that time taken over the horse-hauled Edinburgh & Dalkeith Railway, and used that as launching point for building a line to Hawick). The E&G extended their line eastwards, boring Haymarket Tunnels, and through Princes Street Gardens, to their new terminus, Edinburgh General, which stood back-to-back with North Bridge stations, with through connecting lines, and opened on 1 August 1846. At this time, the entrance to North Bridge station was a rickety, winding wooden staircase from the north end of North Bridge. Edinburgh General station however had its ramped entrances from a bridge. The Scott Monument was being built at this time, and also in recognition of Sir Walter Scott, the bridge had been named Waverley Bridge. From what I am given to understand, it was this that led to the entire complex being considered one station, and it was the public who commonly called it "Waverley station", and the name stuck. Sir Walter Scott himself had retired to Abbotsford (near Selkirk) in the Borders, and when the NBR completed their Edinburgh-Hawick-Carlisle line, it ran through a lot of places associated with Scott, "The Waverley Novels", and other works of his (Hassendean for instance was the Hazeldean from "Jock o' Hazeldean"). So it was that the NBR marketed it as "The Waverley Route". As to George Hudson, he was indeed a member of the Board of the North British Railway. However, he overplayed his hand. While the NBR was still being built, he attempted to take it over, and suggested that all moneys being spent on building railways north of the border instead by concentrated on railways in England. You can imagine how well that went down with the NBR Board. They rallied against him, saw off his predatory takeover, and (obviously) managed to build south. Hudson wasn't completely saw off, and he was given a 'dividend' by the Board, but it can very strongly be argued that his failure to take over the NBR was the beginning of his end. Everything from then on saw his star continuing to eclipse. By the way, the ironwork of the station canopy at Bo'ness on the Bo'ness & Kinneil Railway is that of the original E&G Haymarket train shed.
BR (and subsequently Railtrack as the station's owner) for many years insisted the station was just called Edinburgh, without the Waverley suffix, and it is still listed as just Edinburgh in the stations index of the Great Britain Passenger Railway Timetable. There are of course many other stations across the National Rail network where the company's official name, the timetable name, the advertised name (as shown on passenger information screens) and the local name differ, so Edinburgh Waverley is nothing special in that respect.
When that time machine is up and running, a Scotch express (yes, it is spelt like that) from Kings X to Waverley in the late Victorian age, will be my first dibs. First class, obviously.
Waverley is definitely a station for sitting and enjoying - the roof is glorious, even when there’s a wee bit of dampness in the air (as on your visit)
Interestingly there is still a one off, southbound only service run by LNER called "The Flying Scotsman" so it hasn't been entirely discontinued! It departs at 5.40 each morning and is almost non-stop to London.
The (former) railway lines in the area north of Waverly station to the coast at Leith might be the subject of a few videos if you go back to Edinburgh. From afar and looking at historical pictures it looks interesting.
I know this isn't even remotely railwayish but one of my favourite parts of Edinburgh is Calton Burial Ground. It's supposed to be Burke & Hare bodysnatcher proof, and even has a tower where a blunderbus-equipped guard lived. One or two of the "residents" were prominent members of the medical profession, presumably one time customers of Messrs Burke & Hare, purveyors of the finest quality cadavers.
Burke and Hare were too lazy to dig up graves, they simply murdered their lodgers. Their customers were probably happy to receive fresh cadavers, less malodorous. (No connection to me, by the way.)
@@thomasburke2683 Good point. There's a video on RU-vid of Magnus Magnuson talking about Burke's skeleton which still exists in Edinburgh as he was dissected after being hanged.
Almost, but not quite. Burke & Hare were not bodysnatchers - they were serial killers. Dr Robert Knox, impressed with the freshness of their first cavader, an old man who had died naturally in Hare's West Port lodgings, promised the two good pay for similar specimens. As the two men were busy digging the Union Canal by day, they had no desire to go digging at night, and found it much easier to get someone drunk, then smother them. William Burke was a giant of a man, and he would kneel on the victim's chest, then place one of his huge hands over their mouth and nose; a form of smothering which became known as "Burking". Burke's skeleton can be seen to this day in the Surgeon's Hall Museum, and even that gives you an idea of just how large he must have been. They killed at least 16, mostly women, before being caught. Hare turned King's evidence in return for a pardon, leaving Burke to carry the can. His sentence was to be hanged - then his body turned over to the Edinburgh School of Medicine and Royal College of Surgeons for anatomy and dissection - judges in those days believing in letting the punishment fit the crime. However, bodysnatching was indeed quite common in Edinburgh at the time, with the Edinburgh School of Medicine always needing cadavers for anatomy classes, and it was the "West Port Murders" of Burke and Hare which saw a change in the law, whereby they could no longer accept bodies offered up by third parties. It is also why all the older Edinburgh cemeteries have watchtowers. Side note of railway interest; Dr Robert Knox of Edinburgh School of Medicine faced no consequences for the West Port Murders, but he was so shamed by his part that few students would attend his classes. He soon afterwards left his post for one in London, where he remained until his death. When he did die, he was one of those taken to Brookwood Cemetery by the London Necropolis Railway.
Ah so there lies the reason behind a 1970's answer to pot noodle's, I remember Vesta night as a kiddie, except me father as he was dead against any shape or form of "foreign muck" so me mum used to make him a salad pointing out there were English lettuce, tomatoes etc and he had to eat it or eat his words as he hated salads just as much lol
Always amazing that Walter Scott ended up getting a massive station named after him, then the bridge beside it, then the entire valley - along with a ginormous monument to him as well. Quite the impact in Edinburgh for an author that is not really much read these days at all.
Also a large number of paddle steamers, Waverley being the last survivor, and a good number of streets in many Scottish towns. As you say though, not much read these days!
Scott effectively invented Scotland - or at least the pimped up tartans, bagpipes and much else. So a station or the odd boat named after his works isn't too surprising to me. Wouldn't be surprised if he finessed Scotch whisky from the Irish whiskey equivalent. (Not being serious there...)
4:03That must have been an early use of that versatile building material; quite ambitious to build an entire new railway station from scratch in 1891, the early doubts about its structural integrity must have been resolved by then
Sundays cant get much better, a vlog from Jago followed by the Baldie Food Guy the in the evening Paul and Rebecca Whitewick. I missed out a few beers after the Baldie Food Guy and a lovely family Sunday roast before Paul and Rebecca.
This is getting a little weird. The gentle and soothing commentary from Jago, then the Whitewicks after when I have my tea and Michhael lambert with thoughts on Brexit, no wonder Sunday afternoons disappear so quickly.
I've used that station pretty much every time I've been in Europe in the past 10 or 15 years. I always seem to go out the opposite exit from what I need, and get lost finding the best way in-the depth of the station doesn't help. This delightful video will make me grumble less, the next inevitable time one of these things happens.
