Location type

Station

Names and dates

Houston [Lothian] (1849-1865)
Uphall (1865-1956)
Uphall (1986-)

Note: text in square brackets is added for clarity and was not part of the location's name.

Station code: UHA National Rail ScotRail
Where: West Lothian, Scotland
Opened on the Edinburgh and Bathgate Railway.
Open on the Edinburgh to Glasgow via Bathgate and Airdrie.

Description

This is a two platform station with a car park alongside each platform. Uphall itself is to the north and the station is in the village of Uphall Station, which developed after the station opened.

The station was, at one time, very much at the crossroads of shale oil works lines.

The original station was on the same site. The goods yard was east of the station, on the south side.

It was described in the Ordnance Survey Name Book

A small but neat Stone building, two stories high & slated. It has a small booking office and one small waiting room. It is situated on the Bathgate Branch of the Edinburgh & Glasgow Railway. It serves as a Station for Uphall & Midcalder. The Station Master Mr. Borthwick.

The Uphall Oil Works opened to the north of the station. It was accessed from a connection to the east, which ran into a yard and then to a reversing spur. Lines fanned out into the works and a mineral line ran north to shale mines and Hopetoun Oil Works. These lines were privately owned, not North British Railway owned.

Camps Junction opened to the east of the station, with a North British Railway line running south past the Pumpherston Oil Works to Camps and east to Roman Camp Oil Works. There was a small yard at the junction. Approach was from the west.

The main station building was at street level, to the south of the west end of the station. Both platforms had waiting rooms and there was a goods shed in the yard on the south side of the line. Uphall signal box was beyond the end of the eastbound platform. To the north of this was the exchange yard for the Uphall Oil Works.

The line closed to passengers in 1956. The Pumpherston Oil Works refinery closed in 1964, but the branch remained open. The signal box closed in 1975. The Pumpherston Oil Works branch closed in 1981.

Today the M8 runs parallel with the railway, just to its north. It cuts through the site of the former Uphall Oil Works. Some of the oil works site is now the Uphall Business Park.

The line was reduced to a single track. It re-opened to passengers in 1986, with only one platform on the south side.

With the re-opening between Airdrie and Bathgate has been doubled, a second platform added to the north and a car park added where the Uphall Oil Works exchange yard was located.

Additionally the bridge over Station Road/Pumpherston Road to the west of the station, which for many years a single lane bottleneck requiring traffic lights, has been replaced.

Tags

Station

External links

Canmore site record
NLS Collection OS map of 1892-1914
NLS Collection OS map of 1944-67
NLS Map
NLS Map
NLS Map
03/08/2020

Nearby stations Dechmont [1st] Dechmont [2nd] Drumshoreland Bangour [Hospital] Livingston North Livingston [1st] Livingston Mill Broxburn [1st] Almondhaugh Livingston South Kirknewton Winchburgh Newpark Philpstoun Ratho (Low Level)	Camps Junction [NB] Uphall Oilworks Uphall Junction Bangour Junction Middleton Hall Sidings Cawburn Junction Roman Camp Oil Works Roman Camp Shale Oil Mine No 6 Pumpherston Oil Works Cawburn Chemical Works Cawburn Shale Mine Shale Mine Holygate Goods Shale Mine Broxburn Oil Works
Location names in dark blue are on the same original line.