Would you ever consider doing some of the lost railways of Scotland. Lots of them are now walking paths or have depots which are now different or modified use. Whether it’s the lines from Edinburgh around Perthshire & Crief, or the old Royal Deeside line to Balmoral from Aberdeen.
The line between Dunblane and Crianlarich via Callander is another one. Lines/branches that have been reopened would be another subject worth exploring (Larkhall, Airdrie-Bathgate, Borders/Waverley Line etc).
If you look at a map of Edinburgh, you can see the route of the lines that used to serve Princes Street station from the west. They were re-purposed into the West Approach road, and you can follow it (and some green space) out from Lothian Road to Slateford Junction, where it joins the existing railway. This road was intended to be part of a horrible scheme to bring fast roads into the centre of the city. Thankfully for Edinburgh, and the people who live there, this didn't happen.
I viviidly recall being taken for meals for a special treat, at the Caledonian (The Cally) when at boarding school in Edinburgh during the early 1960's. Its dining room at that time, was probably one of the best restaurants in Edinburgh and to a schoolboy, very luxurious.
The Red Sandstone of The Caley Hotel is from Locharbriggs quarry near Dumfries. A very famous quarry from my home region. The red stone from this quarry was popular in this era and can be seen on lots of Victorian buildings around Edinburgh and Glasgow, it was also shipped for the construction of the steps leading to the Statue of Liberty. Unfortunately it's quite a soft stone so can deteriorate relatively quickly but it's colour is beautiful. It needs careful detailing and construction.
Brill!. After two long sessions in London, where I roamed the tube for years, I am now in Edinburgh so this too is familiar. (There are a few of the old rail tunnels going towards the centre which have been converted for foot/bike/skateboard use)
Now for the New York connection,with that hotel! The Waldorf- Astoria was always connected to Grand Central Station,later Terminal,from the 1870's[?],onward!! When the city,expanded to 42nd Street,the convergence of many hotels,office buildings and made that Street,a very busy thoroughfare! Even now,the district is extremely densely busy,but post Covid,it has a way to go!! Jago,it is sort of interesting that Edinburgh is now tied to New York,who could have guessed 🤔! Thank you for another interesting excursion,and that city(Edinburgh),really has some beautiful scenery,and since my father's side of my family is Scottish,you've whet my appetite to see Scotland,thank you! Thanks again 👍 ☺️ 😊 😘 🤗 🙂 👍 ☺️!
My wife and I stayed there on our honeymoon. When we found out, quite by chance, that it was an old railway hotel, she was certain I'd planned it that way!!
Not that many years ago from the Western Approach Road you could still see the back of the Caledonian Hotel. The station was gone but there were still a few railway gantries rusting away. The whole area has been redeveloped now, nothing is left.
The wooden shanty? I suspect you may have mispronounced the wooden chanty, chanty being a Scots word for chamberpot. On my way home from school I would sometimes get off the bus on Lothian Road and passing the vents that came from the underground kitchens of the hotel above, enter the station by the Lothian Road gate and then exit into Rutland Street. At weekends sometimes I would travel from that station with my mother to visit her mother in Glasgow. I remember seeing the hotel doorman with his lum hat, and gloves tucked into his epaulettes summoning taxis from the nearby rank for the hotel guests.
A shanty is a wooden shack. But on the subject of chanties or chamber pots and railway stations, I read of a BEA pilot who stayed a night in St Enoch's Station Hotel in Glasgow in the 1950s. He had rather a lot of beer to drink and, in those days before en suite facilities, filled the chamber pot to the brim. Being a bit embarrassed to carry this along the corridor to the gents in the morning, he thought he would empty it onto the roof of the station. But as he reached out of the window to do so, the chanty handle broke off, sending the urine-filled receptacle plummeting through the glass roof to explode on the platform below!
Great video, Jago. The only thing I’d have to disagree with you on is you saying that not much sign of the station remains today. Because the station hotel was built right on top of the final form of Princes Street Station, without demolishing it, essentially the entire exterior of the original station still survives, as the bottom layer and entrance of the current hotel - combined with the side entrance gates you showed, that means more survives from it than most lost stations!
If I remember rightly, the entrance from Princes Street to the railway station was through the left-hand arch of the three at the front of the Caledonian Hotel. In it lurked the only policeman with an English-style helmet I saw in Scotland: presumably from the British Transport Police.
I was born in Edinburgh 1948 and we lived in Kirknewton but the local station was called Midcalder in those days but now renamed appropriately. I never knew the the station as Princes Street. We always called it the Caley Station. It was steam trains in those days. I was thrilled for my first diesel! Curriehill station was closed then and we moved to Currie. Fortunately resurrected. Then Kingsknowe and the viaduct parallel to the canal aqueduct. After Slateford there was Merchiston station before the terminus. Those lines were removed to make a road bypass. I remember putting a penny in the slot for a miniature railway to do a circuit in the Caley before age 10.
I remember getting trains from Princes St to Falkirk where my dad had relatives. A couple of weeks ago I took part in a 10k race on the road that has been built where the tracks ran.
Simply loved the grand old buildings of Edinburgh when my wife and I visited the land of my father's birth, just before the Covid outbreak. We got separated at the Edinburgh Castle, so I opted to walk back to our small boutique Hotel accommodation alone. My wife was safe in the company of my older sister and brother-in-law. It was a long and tiring trudge. But I had magnificent old buildings as my landmarks. Lilian was holding our funds for safety reasons. I was only back at the hotel for half an hour when the rest of my party arrived in a taxi. However I saw more of Edinburgh and I still treasure those beautiful buildings that I picked out as landmarks. May they last forever!
Ah, the Cally Hotel, it's a good few years since I stayed there. Great when someone else picks up the bill. Shame the station has vanished under the many new buildings of various degrees of taste, as its continued existence would help to relieve some of the congestion at Waverley (with its own fine hotel nearby).
There was also another big station in Edinburgh in Leith. It rose and fell in the 20th century. It survived long after closing to passengers as it was used as a make-shift stable for both main-line class 55 Deltics and Claytons, class 17s amongst other bits and bobs. Now it is home to a Tesco, although bits of the old structure is still visible. In its derelict and semi-derelic state it found fame in an Irvine Welch novel!
@@kenjohnson762 Indeed, and there is a surprisingly a large amount of it still visible on one form or another. Cycle paths, roads etc. The Western Approach Road, for example, takes the route of the line into the former Caledonian Station. There is even talk of reinstating stations on the old Suburban line, whilst the line survived, mostly for freight and stock movements so as to avoid Waverley, the stations were all closed and demolished. Parts of some are still visible, but it would be an interesting addition for commuters if it were to reopen.
I worked in the Bethany shop next to it, their basement was originally part of the station and you can still see the old station tiling with various railway-related signs built into it. Very interesting stuff.
Never knew anything about the shenanigans leading to the closure of the station. At least they can't be blamed on the much maligned Dr Beeching. Many thanks - you are the Googie to our Withers
He didn't tell you the half of the shenanigans that led to its opening - there's a good reason that the CR didn't plan to have a passenger terminus in Edinburgh, and why Lothian Road looked like a goods station - that's what it was! Briefly, Haymarket and 'General' (pre-Waverley) stations were to have been the CR destination - only by the time the railway actually arrived on the ground, the Edinburgh & Glasgow Railway, their original owner that had indicated that a deal could be struck during the planning stages, had been taken over by an NB top-heavy board of the SCR, which it later acquired too - and they revised the deal to an inconvenient bay at the outer end of Haymarket, forcing the CR to acquire further land at the eleventh hour - hence the emergency use of Lothian Road, pending the lacklustre first Princes Street terminus of the near bankrupt CR...!!
Surely Glasgow St Enoch was the largest station to be closed in Scotland rather than Princes Street? (5:45). It was the Glasgow and South Western Railway's main Glasgow station and ran to 12 platforms (thanks Humboldt Bear) rather than 7.
The good old Cally Hotel :) My mums best friends son was a chef there for most of the 80s, and my dad, the avid trainspotter, used to tell him about what it was like when the station was there. Like other posters here, you should check out the lost station at Leith or St Enochs in Glasgow. There is also the former St Margarets depot in Edinburgh, which was closed in the 60s but has recently had its engine turntable revealed - the land is being redeveloped for housing, but the council are trying to find ways of memorialising what is left.
An interesting aside is that when Patrick Abercrombie prepared a civic plan for Edinburgh in 1949 he proposed that Princes Street be retained as the long distance Edinburgh terminus (for both old LMS and LNER routes) and Waverly be demoted to commuter trains only. In fact Waverly was to be buried and Princes Street Gardens extended above it!
@@DB-ug3pe Not a great track record then. The Plymouth rebuilding for example is strongly criticised in Britain's Lost Cities. Historic buildings were lost and the centre became dominated by an inner ring road. I'm glad Waverley was retained - separate stations for commuters and long-distance are a nuisance, Birmingham for example which will be exacerbated when HS2 is at Curzon Street. It seems planners have never had to change trains with heavy luggage.
@@iankemp1131 his plan for Edinburgh involved demolishing the whole of Princes st, motorways ploughing through the centre of the city and declared almost all of the historic tenements unfit for habitation and to be demolished. It would have been a disaster but thankfully there wasn't the money.
@@DB-ug3pe Was just reading about the Bruce Report for Glasgow which proposed similar destruction of the historic central streets as well as slum clearance, the M8 and combining Queen Street and Buchanan Street into a new enlarged station. Thankfully the first didn't happen. The 2nd and 3rd were decidedly mixed blessings and the 4th didn't happen but might have been useful.
Did you have a look inside the hotel? I stayed at the Caledonian Hotel as it then was back in the late 1990s. I definitely remember that the restaurant was on the ground floor at the back of the building and you could clearly see the lines of the old platform and tracks gently sweeping in on the stone floor.
I had a great view from my house and used to love watching the engines turn on the big turntable. My grandad used to arrive there on the train from London. The smell of varnish and pipe tobacco is my memory of the Station as a young boy
It was a wonderful hotel in years past. I enjoyed several excellent Hogmanay caleighs at the Cally over the years. Haven't been back to it in nearly 20 years though.
You are the best salesmen for Scottish tourism since Craig Ferguson. If I had the cash, your video would really make me want to visit, and stay in that hotel. Well done.
I think someone ought to mention that the railway from Princes Street station to Dundee Street (68 ch) and the branch to Westfield Road (1 mi 41 ch from Princes Street station to Westfield Road) were converted into the Western Approach Road and are now an environmental disaster and the junction between the Western Approach Road and Lothian Road is far and away Edinburgh’s most enjoyed traffic bottleneck.
My mother came from Edinburgh and when I was little we would visit her mother regularly by train. One of the questions which always had to be settled was, "Which station are you coming to?" and then my grandmother would come and meet us in a taxi - one of those ones with an open luggage bit instead of a fourth door.
Ah, cool. It's not immediately obvious to the visitor that this was a station, but if you look behind it and at what's now the West Approach Road the architecture is till there.
Actually, the public bar to the right of the main entrance was the booking office - and the publicly accessible Peacock Lounge is the innermost part of the old station concourse. Treat yourself to an expensive afternoon tea or a cocktail, sometime!
I would hope so, since it is just across the road from Princes Street, so surely the enigmatic Mr H would have popped in there as well. And he rode on the tram too ... that sounds like an indication.
Oh wow, I love the ♿️ logo in the Edinburgh trams! Clearly inspired by the “active” logo (such as Apple and Twitter emoji switched to, unsure about others). It’s a little thing on the surface, but the original logo literally just stuck a circle over an existing logo for a chair, so we were represented by the chair rather than a person _in_ that chair. It also doesn’t truly mesh with the other people logos (such as used on toilets) which have rounded bodies. The modern logos emphasise the person doing the pushing, and that pushing/using a wheelchair isn’t a passive act. Bravo Edinburgh! Now, onto the other 6 minutes and 20 seconds of video… :)
"I'm going to come clean with you," states Mr. Jago Hazzard. Video jumps to the inside of tram carriage and an advertising banner asking, "Struggling with your bathroom?" Well done! Edit to correct my error: a tram carriage, not a tube carriage.
Edinburgh Tram is to be extended to Port of Leith and proposal to extend via Lower Granton to form a loop around North Edinburgh. And also to extend to Newbridge North to the west of Edinburgh City Centre. I have been to Edinburgh including the city centre, Edinburgh Castle, Edinburgh Zoo and of course Edinburgh Waverley station. And I do think that the former Waverley Line now known as the Borders Line should of remained for trains coming from Carlisle. As the Borders Line goes from Edinburgh Waverley to Tweedbank. And isn’t electrified.
I think the Caledonian was only marginally smaller than the North British and they were deadly rivals - West v East Coast. No contest between Waverley and Princes St for retention as the latter couldn't serve all the lines to the east and south and was duplicated by Haymarket. But we did, eventually, get a single hub serving an enormous range of destinations across Britain (as 1:45). Far easier than the cross-city change in Glasgow. Princes Street was always hamstrung by the NBR getting the Edinburgh and Glasgow Railway which had the fastest and most direct route between the two cities and of course is still the main route today. In Glasgow it was the other way round; the NBR/E&G was squashed into Queen Street which was "compact" compared to Glasgow Central.
@@Zveebo I just read that the post-war Bruce Report included replacing Buchanan Street and Queen Street stations with a Glasgow North station on land including the site of Buchanan Street, but significantly larger. But it didn't happen. I wonder if Buchanan Street might have been better to keep that Queen Street? 6 platforms rather than 7, but probably longer, and with more space for expansion? Obviously would have needed some rejigging of routes to the east round Cowlairs. Queen Street did have the better architecture though, especially the roof.
@@iankemp1131 Queen Street would still have had to remain because of the low level services there. GLasgow Central LL couldn't reach many of its destinations. Buchanan Street was an even smaller station - only 4 platforms.
@@roboftherock Well, Queen Street and Buchanan Street were adjacent, so the low level platforms could still have interchanged, just as Buchanan Street underground station serves Queen Street. If I remember rightly the entrance to the LL platforms is at the north (Buchanan Street) side of the station and is convenient for the replacement bus station?
@@iankemp1131 Buchanan Street Station occupied the site now being used for British Transport Police 'D' Division headquarters. That's north of Buchanan Bus Station. The linear distance between the two places is ⅓ mile. The elevation difference is more than 50ft then add another 20 for the depth of the tracks below ground level. For the technical ability of the time, that combination probably ruled out any interchange. Using Geoff Marshall's analogy that is probably equal to a 15 storey building. Plus the tracks through Buchanan Steet Underground station run below Queen Street LL lines.
5:45 I wonder what the most significantly demolished station is...for example there is absolutely nothing left of Broad Street in London, which was big. But there are still remnants of Crouch End (platforms and building facade). Any ideas? And, as always, thanks for the video Jago!
I might argue for Blackpool's Central Station. As far as I am aware, it is the largest station to.ever be closed in the UK, with I think 16 platforms and for many years it was the busiest station... (puts on Clarkson voice)... "In the world". Happy to bow to other candidates, but I think that might take some beating. Over to you.....!! Ps. There is absolutely nothing left of it either. It's just been a huge car park for fifty years, but now is becoming a new £330 million attraction called, ironically Blackpool Central. Things come full circle. Lol.
@@dancedecker Good thought. Another one is Glasgow St Enoch which had about 12 platforms and was architecturally distinguished. Some, fortunately, were not demolished but found new uses (Manchester Central, Bath Green Park) or were partially reopened (Birmingham Snow Hill).
@@iankemp1131 Thank you. Yes, a very good contender. Shame when the more lavishly built are demolished, rather than repurposed. Thankfully, to me, the most spectacular still survives and is flourishing, St Pancras, especially the hotel part. Awesome. Thank you Mr Betjaman
One of the great things about Edinburgh's railway history is that you just can't stop digging; and it's so accessible, given Edinburgh's relatively compact size, that you can't help but just go and take a look. By walking only, if you're so inclined. May your crossings ever be level, Jago!
Really enjoy your videos and very much enjoying the tales from your recent jaunts to Scotland. I don't suppose you'd ever consider covering the lost Leith station one day?
As well as the station, there's the viaduct that used to take the tracks across Leith Walk. The part that crosses the road is gone, but there are still arches along Jane Street and Manderston Street.
When travelling into Edinburgh by train from the west, many people get off at Haymarket Station instead of going all the way through to Waverley. This led to ‘Getting off at Haymarket’ being a euphemism for coitus interruptus.
Excellent video of part of a great city. I was there in the summer for a short holiday and actually went to the Caledonian. As always, Jago, your videos are brilliant in themselves and really good at bringing back memories of holidays and trips out. Thanks.
In January 1958 a train failed to stop as it came into the station. I've seen a splendid photo of the steam locomotive on its side with its front wheels over the barrier between the platforms and the concourse.
That was a very good summary of the station itself, but you didn't mention the suburban lines which ran into Princes Street, serving Balerno, Barnton and Leith. Balerno lost its passenger service in 1943, and Barnton in 1951, but the line to Leith North, one of the most useful of Edinburgh's local lines, survived until 1962. If it hadn't been for the intention to get rid of Princes Street it would probably have lasted quite a bit longer.
Interesting precis of a very complicated story, Jago! There are many more examples of the CR & NBR trying to bankrupt each other actually, culminating in the Leith New Lines... Maybe next time you come this way, stay a few days and make some films about them?!! Not sure if Princes Street was the largest Scottish terminal to close under Beeching actually - I'd have thought it might have been Glasgow St Enoch, but I'm prepared to be persuaded otherwise!
Perth had a station on the embankment before the current combo of straight and curved platforms. There was also another on the opposite bank of the river due to the rail companies not wanting to share a station.
Lots of old lines and termini around Edinburgh. Leith Central, as others have noted, was probably the biggest of the rest. With the re-introduction of trams, it makes me wonder if some of these old lines couldnt be reinstated to enhance this network with lower cost and less disruption. Que sera sera.
Largest station in Scotland to be closed? Surely that was Glasgow St Enoch? I stayed in the Caledonian Hotel when I was about nine; 1967 probably. The station had been closed for a couple of years by then, but it was very much still intact. The trainshed was almost completely hidden from the outside, but its interior was seriously impressive. Interesting that the Caley put up with a utilitarian and inadequate wooden station for so long. Its northern Glasgow terminus, Buchanan Street, stayed that way until it closed in 1966!
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I rememeber visiting the ghostly closed station as a boy in 1968. There was also St Enochs (now demolished) in Glasgow which would make a good film also.
An excellent condensed history. The old Lothian Rd. station site is now a big posh hotel and the mainline to it and Princes' St is now the Western Approach road upon which you can drive or cycle very fast illegally and pretend you're a train. It really was a massive complex with yards and sidings plus the two stations. There were more sidings that came off just before Princes' St Station. They came out at Haymarket right across the road from Haymarket station at the foot of Morrison St. but well above it on massive earthworks. It is now the site of another posh hotel currently under construction. Morrison St. itself is on a hill. It rises above the old Caley line and crosses it on a rather interesting bridge. This consists of a stone bridge of three arches which align with the old Lothian Rd Station. The bridge was extended another few tracks Northwest to allow new tracks to align with Princes' St Station, but it was extended as a riveted iron bridge attached to a stone bridge. It is under this iron bridge that the Western approach Road passes to its junction with Lothian Road. The old stone bridge now forms part of the Edinburgh International Conference Centre. It's road level is the entrance to the centre and its portals are the basement and used as function rooms and venues. Leith Central would be an interesting station for a video. It was NB and was to be the main terminus, replacing Waverley and catching the Baltic and North Sea trade from the docks. This didn't work out. It closed in the 50's and ended life as a motive power depot. It finally closed in 1971. It was the station referred to in the title of Trainspotting as by the 80's kids broke in and were doing drugs there. It was turned into Leith Waterworld, which leaked, foundered and sank. It was apparently haunted too. It was demolished, partially turned into a Tesco but the outside facia is listed and remains intact.
Despite being in my early 20s, employed and single, I never did manage to be on a service which went to Princes Street Station. One of my very few railway regrets. Oh, yes - please produce more of your shenanigans, if it is your pleasure to do so.
Having been a frequent visitor to Edinburgh over the last 20 years or more I never realised there was ever a station in princes street other than the Waverley one.
Even though the station itself is no more, at least the hotel building survives and is in use. Virtually no trace exists of Glasgow St. Enoch & Buchanan St at their respective sites (a shopping centre and university respectively occupy each site), although disused arches/approaches & tunnels connected to each station can respectively still be found if one knows where to look.
The station building effectively survives as well - the hotel was literally built right on top of the existing station without demolishing it, so the lower level of the current hotel is just the station building itself! So more of it survives than most lost stations.
I’ve always been drawn to railways and when working in Edinburgh I did some research about the old princesses st railway if it had stayed open it would have saved millions on the tram system
Princes Street was NOT the largest station in Scotland to be closed. That was St. Enoch in Glasgow, which had 12 platforms. Glasgow used to have two pairs of terminal stations close to each other, but annoyingly not close to the other pair: St. Enoch and Central and Queen Street and Buchanan Street. St. Enoch and Central were the terminii for services to the South and England, whilst Queen Street and Buchanan Street served the rest of Scotland. Central and Queen Street still exist. Central is effectively two stations, with Central Low Level being a through station for many East-West suburban routes, while the higher level also serves suburban routes as a terminus as well as long distance trains. The distance between Central and Queen Street is a nuisance to many travellers. If the Glasgow Crossrail scheme ever goes ahead, the two will be linked by rail, there will be a continuous North-South rail route across central Glasgow and several new interchanges will be created, including with the subway system at West Street. At present, there is only one such subway / surface rail interchange at Partick.
@@tooleyheadbang4239 Neither. Crossrail is planned to link them. Combining them would be impossible as they serve lines in different directions. and much of central Glasgow lies between them.
Some of the old rail lines have been recycled in what is called The Western Approach Road. The road is actually on some of the old line and bridges on the way to Murrayfield
The Western Approach Road into the centre of Edinburgh (which is just out of shot at the end of the video) was built on the trackbed out of the station - its really obvious if you look at Google Maps or similar.
always thought that the terminus for the Caledonian had always been Haymarket... attributed the hotel to an earlier age of stagecoach travel (I mean those horse-drawn things, not the intercity bus-company). of course, Caledonia is largely an operator of steam-liners/ferries as well... wonder how much this was a ferry-railway in the day?
A lot of the old rail infrastructure around Edinburgh has been bulldozed and built upon. The goods yard at Fountainbridge, and, under construction at present the new development right across from Haymarket Station, which used to be the goods yard there. You had dedicated lines running right into Leith docks, and Granton Harbour, then, just like London, you have the disused lines and their stations, now largely repurposed as foot/cycle paths, right across the city and surrounding districts.
Other than straw, I couldn't think of a better material than timber to build a railway station out of. Especially when all the locomotives were steam with open fireboxes and the prospect of a major station accident.
Jago would have to go some to beat the brilliant S&D video last year by 'Rediscovering Lost railways' that has had hundreds of positive reviews on RU-vid.
4:24 id have seen that loco friday gone as i took a trip to york feeling a bit confident to go out after getting older a stupid cold was a bit annoyed with 1 section of the wall randomly being closed and locked off with a stupid gate meaning id join at Piccadilly tower
Excellent video - yet another railway thing I knew nothing about! But, talking of Waverly, every time I see it, the same question pops into my head - how the hell was it allowed to be built where it was?! I know nothing of the history of Edinburgh, but I assume that the valley between the Princes St and the castle sides of the city was once an open area, perhaps a park or similar? Just the sort of thing any big city would love to have in it's centre. So how did - even the Victorians - think it was a good place to put a bloody great railway station (even one as nice as Waverly)? I feel there may be a video there somewhere...
