Riccarton Junction railway station

Riccarton Junction
Riccarton Junction
	The station in 2007
Location	Roxburghshire ; Scotland
Coordinates	55°16′17″N2°43′36″W / 55.2715°N 2.7267°W Coordinates: 55°16′17″N2°43′36″W / 55.2715°N 2.7267°W
Grid reference	NY539977
Platforms	3 (later 2)
Other information
Status	Disused
History
Original company	Border Union Railway - The Waverley Route
Pre-grouping	North British Railway
Post-grouping	London and North Eastern Railway
Key dates
2 July 1862	Opened as Riccarton NB
1 January 1905	Renamed Riccarton Junction
6 January 1969	Closed

Last updated December 22, 2021

Riccarton Junction, in the county of Roxburghshire in the Scottish Borders, was a railway village and station. In its heyday it had 118 residents and its own school, post office and grocery store. The station was an interchange between the Border Counties Railway branch to Hexham and the North British Railway's (NBR's) Border Union Railway (also known as the Waverley Route).

History

The settlement of Riccarton, which adjoins the station, consisted, in 1959, of around thirty houses, with at least one member of each household working for British Railways, which had a civil engineer's depot near the station.^[1] Remarkably there was no road access until a forest track was built in 1963, all access until then being by rail. The isolated position of Riccarton and the need to provide for the villagers may have been one reason why the station remained open until the late 1960s, as by this time ordinary public traffic was virtually non-existent.^[1] The branch line from Riccarton Junction to Kielder and Hexham in England was closed on 15 October 1956. The Waverley Route was closed on 6 January 1969. Part of it was re-opened in 2015 as the Borders Railway, but not as far south as Riccarton Junction.^[2]

Preceding station		Disused railways		Following station
Shankend Line and station closed		North British Railway Waverley Route		Steele Road Line and station closed
Shankend Line and station closed		North British Railway Border Counties Railway		Saughtree Line and station closed

Reuse (and Preservation)

Track panels were re-laid by the now wound-up Friends of Riccarton Junction, but these were later lifted in 2011.^[3]

The Waverley Route Heritage Association has since reconstructed a section of track between Whitrope Siding and Tunnel as a heritage railway; this is not connected to the site at Riccarton itself. The association, having secured a three-year lease on the two-mile section to the site, is aiming to restore this section of the former route from its base at Whitrope down the line into the Junction as the southern terminus of the preserved line.

Preceding station	Proposed Heritage railways			Following station
Whitrope		Border Union Railway		Terminus

In the media

Ian Nairn visited the station three years after its closing in his 1972 programme Nairn Across Britain: From Leeds into Scotland. By this date the tracks through the station had been lifted.^[4]

A 30-minute TV documentary, Slow Train to Riccarton, was produced in 1986. This included both archive film and contemporary footage. Most of the buildings in Riccarton village and station had disappeared, but the schoolhouse and stationmaster's house were still extant.^[5]

Notes

Citations

1 2 "Riccarton Junction Station". The Railway Magazine . Vol. 105 no. 694. Westminster: Tothill Press. February 1959. p. 145.
↑ "[HISTORY] Riccarton Junction". riccartonjunction.org. Retrieved 14 November 2018.
↑ "Disused Stations - Riccarton Junction" Disused Stations Site Record; Retrieved 17 May 2016
↑ Ian Nairn (Summer 1972). Narin Across Britain - From Leeds into Scotland (Television production). BBC . Retrieved 18 April 2014.
↑ Eric Robson (1986). Slow Train to Riccarton (from "Coast to Coast") (Television production). BBC. Archived from the original on 21 December 2021. Retrieved 29 October 2020.

Related Research Articles

St Enoch station was a mainline railway station in the city of Glasgow, Scotland between 1876 and 1966. The hotel was the first building in Glasgow to be fitted out with electric lighting. The station was demolished in 1977.

The Waverley Route was a railway line that ran south from Edinburgh, through Midlothian and the Scottish Borders, to Carlisle. The line was built by the North British Railway; the stretch from Edinburgh to Hawick opened in 1849 and the remainder to Carlisle opened in 1862. The line was nicknamed after the immensely popular Waverley Novels, written by Sir Walter Scott.

Whitrope Siding was a trailing short siding or spur off the "up" (southbound) line, an associated trailing cross-over between up and down lines, a pair of railway cottages and a signal box on the Waverley Line or Waverley Route. It was used as a goods loading bay. The site is now the home of the Whitrope Heritage Centre, as well as the current terminus of the heritage Border Union Railway.

Whitrope is a densely forested, but sparsely populated area, high in the Southern Upland hills in the south central Scottish Borders in the former county of Roxburghshire. Situated some 12 miles south from Hawick on the B6399 road, the Scottish watershed passes through the area; Whitrope Burn draining south towards Newcastleton and Flosh Burn draining north towards Hawick.

The Glasgow and Paisley Joint Railway was the section of railway line between Glasgow Bridge Street railway station and Paisley, in the west of Scotland. It was constructed and operated jointly by two competing railway companies as the stem of their lines to Greenock and Ayr respectively, and it opened in 1840. The Joint Committee, which controlled the line, built a branch to Govan and later to Cessnock Dock, and then Prince's Dock.

Bridge Street railway station, now disused, was the original Glasgow terminus of the Glasgow and Paisley Joint Railway; jointly owned by the Glasgow, Paisley and Greenock Railway (GP&G), which later merged with the Caledonian Railway, and the Glasgow, Paisley, Kilmarnock and Ayr Railway (GPK&A), which became part of the Glasgow & South Western Railway.

Waverley Route Heritage Association is a heritage railway group involved with the history, heritage and preservation of the Waverley Route, based/centred on Whitrope, south of Hawick, Scotland.

Lyoncross railway station was intended to be a railway station between the towns of Newton Mearns and Barrhead, Scotland as part of the Lanarkshire and Ayrshire Railway.

Gorebridge is a railway station on the Borders Railway, which runs between Edinburgh Waverley and Tweedbank. The station, situated 11 miles 77 chains (19 km) south-east of Edinburgh Waverley, serves the town of Gorebridge in Midlothian, Scotland. It is owned by Network Rail and managed by Abellio ScotRail.

The Caledonian Railway main line in Scotland connected Glasgow and Edinburgh with Carlisle, via Carstairs and Beattock.

Redesmouth is a village in Northumberland, England, just over 1 mile (1.6 km) to the south-east of Bellingham.

The Border Counties Railway was a railway line connecting Hexham in Northumberland, with Riccarton Junction on the Waverley Route in Roxburghshire.

The Glasgow and Milngavie Junction Railway was a short locally promoted branch line built to connect the industrial town of Milngavie with the main line railway network, near Glasgow, Scotland. It opened in 1863.

The Hamilton and Strathaven Railway was a historic railway in Scotland. It ran from a junction with the Hamilton Branch of the Caledonian Railway to a terminus at Strathaven. The railway was worked from the start by the Caledonian Railway, who absorbed the railway company in 1864.

The Border Union Railway was a railway line which connected places in the south of Scotland and Cumberland in England. It was authorised on 21 July 1859 and advertised as the Waverley Route by the promoters - the North British Railway. It connected the Edinburgh and Hawick Railway at Hawick with Carlisle.

Falstone railway station is a former railway station that served the hamlet of Falstone, in Northumberland, England.

Kielder railway station is a closed railway station that served the village hamlet of Kielder, Northumberland.

Deadwater railway station is a closed railway station situated on the border between England and Scotland at the head of the North Tyne River. The station served the settlement of Deadwater which consisted of just six houses.

Saughtree railway station is a closed railway station situated a mile north of the hamlet of Saughtree and two miles from the border with England.

Fountainhall railway station served the village of Fountainhall, Scottish Borders from 1848 to 1969 on the Waverley Route.

References

Butt, R. V. J. (1995). The Directory of Railway Stations: details every public and private passenger station, halt, platform and stopping place, past and present (1st ed.). Sparkford: Patrick Stephens Ltd. ISBN 978-1-85260-508-7. OCLC 60251199.
Thomas, John (1971). A Regional History of the Railways of Great Britain. VI Scotland: The Lowlands and the Borders (1st ed.). Newton Abbot, Devon: David & Charles. ISBN 0-7153-5408-6. OCLC 16198685.

Thomas, John; Paterson, Rev A.J.S. (1984). A Regional History of the Railways of Great Britain. VI Scotland: The Lowlands and the Borders (2nd ed.). Newton Abbott, Devon: David & Charles. ISBN 0-9465-3712-7. OCLC 12521072.

External links

Disused Stations: Riccarton Junction

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[Riccarton-1] 1 2 "Riccarton Junction Station". The Railway Magazine . Vol. 105 no. 694. Westminster: Tothill Press. February 1959. p. 145.

[2] "[HISTORY] Riccarton Junction". riccartonjunction.org. Retrieved 14 November 2018.

[3] "Disused Stations - Riccarton Junction" Disused Stations Site Record; Retrieved 17 May 2016

[4] Ian Nairn (Summer 1972). Narin Across Britain - From Leeds into Scotland (Television production). BBC . Retrieved 18 April 2014.

[5] Eric Robson (1986). Slow Train to Riccarton (from "Coast to Coast") (Television production). BBC. Archived from the original on 21 December 2021. Retrieved 29 October 2020.

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