Date: 08/04/2012

Would you like to see my maps of the railways? As conversational opening gambits go, it is not the kind of statement likely to fire you to the top of the guest list for a dinner party. Or, if you are already at a social gathering, it probably won't get you invited back. And yet, the pictorial history they offer of the expansion, contraction, disappearance and planned revival of train travel in the Scottish Borders is - to my mind at least - an intriguing one.

External links

The region without train stations

BBC News

Giancarlo Rinaldi looks at the story of a corner of south east Scotland which has gone without railway stations for more than 40 years.

Related images

Gresley D49 no 62721 Warwickshire passing Hawick North box with a down Waverley route freight, thought to have been taken in 1958. The locomotive was withdrawn from St Margarets shed in August of that year and cut up at Darlington Works the following month.
Location: Hawick North Signal Box
Company: Edinburgh and Hawick Railway (North British Railway)
//1958 Robin Barbour Collection (Courtesy Bruce McCartney)

A View from the Bridge I. Looking south from the bridge over the Waverley route south of Hassendean station in the 1960s as A1 Pacific no 60152 Holyrood approaches with an Edinburgh bound train. [See image 28699]
Location: Hassendean
Company: Edinburgh and Hawick Railway (North British Railway)
// Robin Barbour Collection (Courtesy Bruce McCartney)

A railwayman - thought to be the signalman from Riccarton South box - returns to the station buildings at Riccarton Junction in the Spring of 1966.
Location: Riccarton Junction
Company: Border Union Railway (North British Railway)
//1966 Frank Spaven Collection (Courtesy David Spaven)