This was a two platform through station built on a curve in the south of Bathgate. The main station building was on the eastbound platform. The building had a large canopy. Opposite was a NB style waiting room.
To the south was a single track bypass line and lines into the Balbardie Steel Works and collieries such as Riddochhill Colliery Pit No 1. Bathgate West Junction [2nd] (opened 1897) was at the west end of the station. At the east end, north of the platforms, was a locomotive watering siding and water tanks. North of this was the site of Bathgate [1st].
This was the third station opened in Bathgate. It appeared in working timetables as Bathgate E&G until renamed by the North British Railway. The station replaced the first station opened in Bathgate, the original terminus of the Edinburgh and Bathgate Railway at Bathgate [1st].
The original station here was minimal (possibly only one platform - on the north side for exchange with Bathgate [1st] station. It did, however, have a water supply which was pumped from a dirty drain alongside the Bathgate Chemical Works.
This was a through station which allowed trains to run from Edinburgh Waverley to Bathgate West Junction [2nd] for the route to Glasgow via Slamannan and Polkemmet Junction where the line divided into lines to Airdrie and Morningside [NBR].
The line closed to passengers in 1956 and the canopy was removed from the station building and waiting room opposite demolished. Bathgate West Junction [2nd] closed in 1973 when the line to Easton Colliery closed. The station then survived largely intact until the 1982 when the line through the station closed. Around this time the main building was burned down.
The platforms survived until the 1990s when the site was cleared to become a car park.
With the re-opening of the Airdrie-Bathgate railway the line re-opened through the station site. It is now a double track electrified railway.
Nearby stations Bathgate [4th] Bathgate [1st] Bathgate Bathgate Lower Whitburn Armadale Armadale [1st] Foulshiels Livingston [1st] Westfield Almondhaugh Livingston Mill Bangour [Hospital] Livingston North Bents | Bathgate West Junction [2nd] Balbardie Steel Works Bathgate Central Junction Bathgate Shed Bathgate West Junction [1st] Quarry Bathgate LMD Polkemmet Junction Bathgate Brass Foundry West Lothian Steel Rolling Mill and Shovel Works Bathgate West LMD Hopetoun Steel Works Saw Mills Balbardie Brick Works Balbardie Colliery Pit No 1 |
Location names in dark blue are on the same original line. |
Vanished Railways of West Lothian |