Wellwood No 3 Pit Siding
View west at Wellwood Siding Cottage (seen to the left). This was to the east of the A70. Wellwood No 3 Pit Signal Box (Wellwood No 1 Signal Box which was further east) was in front of the cottage and to the left of the trackbed. It controlled access to a siding.
This siding was one of two which gave access to the Nether Wellwood pits by reversal. One of these is to the left (it survived closure of No 3 pit and double tracking of the railway and must have been retained as a refuge) and the other is some way behind the camera to the right (it served No 2 pit). The latter siding closed on double tracking of the Muirkirk line and was replaced with a short lived private line from Muirkirk Ironworks.
The bing to the left was in an area of old bell-pits which had been served by an early waggonway from the Muirkirk Ironworks. The same pits may have served the Nether Wellwood Ironworks of the 1730s.
The cottage was abandoned shortly before the photograph was taken, due to the expansion of the Powharnal opencast into this area which has destroyed the remains of everything described above - at the time of writing this view would be of a large flooded hole in the ground.
Location: Wellwood No 3 Pit Siding
Original line: Muirkirk Branch (Glasgow and South Western Railway)
Photographer: Ewan Crawford
Contact photographer: Ewan Crawford
Date: 25/06/2003
Image number: 53828
