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Double track lines from Abbeyhill Junction (the approach from Edinburgh Waverley) and Piershill Junction (from Portobello met here, the junction forming the top of a triangular junction. The line continued to Granton, North Leith and, to the immediate west, the large Leith Walk East Goods. These lines opened in 1868 replacing the harder to work earlier alignment through Scotland Street Tunnel to Edinburgh Canal Street, a rope worked incline. A signal box opened with the junction.

In 1891 Easter Road station opened at the junction. This had two platforms. The Granton and North Leith bound platform ran from the Easter Road overbridge to the junction and down the Abbeyhill Junction fork. The Edinburgh Waverley platform started west of the Easter Road overbridge and ran as far as the junction. The junction signal box was replaced with the opening of the station. The box was west of the overbridge and on the north side of the line.

The station closed in 1947 when passenger services to North Leith ended (Granton had closed in 1925), but the junction survived considerably longer.

The line beyond the junction to Granton and North Leith was singled in January 1970, with yard working in operation. A fire burned down the signal box in 1977, just before Edinburgh Signalling Centre took over. A temporary box was used until late January 1977. The approaches from Abbeyhill Junction and Lochend Junction were singled. In 1980 Leith Walk East Goods was lifted. Engineers sidings (known as the sawmill sidings for a sawmill which once stood at their very west end) survived a little longer.

In 1986 the line to Granton fell out of use, but was retained as far as Bonnington South Junction. The Easter Road Junction to Abbeyhill Junction curve was lifted in 1989 (and Lochend Junction to Piershill Junction singled). A single track line survived running from Powderhall to Piershill Junction for 'binliner' trains, starting in 1989.

The line fell out of use with the cessation of traffic from Powderhall in February 2017 and is in abeyance. Various proposals for future use of the trackbed have been made.

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