Date: 04/01/2014

RENEWED calls have been made to bring back a historic train line. The railway, which ran from Perth, through Kinross and on to Edinburgh, was closed in the 1970s to make way for the M90 motorway. The journey between the two cities takes just under an hour and a half, with hopes a new line would reduce the journey to under an hour.

External links

Campaign to restore railway line

Herald

The railway, which ran from Perth, through Kinross and on to Edinburgh, was closed in the 1970s to make way for the M90 motorway.

Related images

The South & West Railway Society Granite City from Euston heads north through Kinross Junction on the Glenfarg Line on 3 September 1966 behind A2 Pacific 60532 Blue Peter on the Edinburgh - Aberdeen leg of its journey. The 1890 Kinross Junction was the second station to bear the name and the last survivor of the 4 (5 - EC) stations built in Kinross, finally closing in January 1970. [See image 20706]
Location: Kinross Junction [2nd]
Company: Fife and Kinross Railway
03/09/1966 Robin Barbour Collection (Courtesy Bruce McCartney)

While far from ideal photographic conditions (see the marker lights on the leading loco), this shot seems to capture the essence of how I remember late autumn/winter afternoons in Edinburgh in the late sixties/early seventies. It shows a pair of class 26s passing Haymarket depot with the 14.50 Edinburgh Waverley - Inverness (green D5335 and blue D5344, both of Inveness). Having restarted from its first stop at Haymarket the train will travel via the Glenfarg line, calling at Inverkeithing, Rosyth Halt, Dunfermline, Cowdenbeath and Kinross Junction to reach Perth at 16.03, quicker, if only by a few minutes, than the equivalent service today which stops only at Kirkcaldy and Markinch.
Location: Haymarket MPD
Company: Edinburgh and Glasgow Railway
22/10/1969 Bill Jamieson

A rail route obliterated by motorway - looking north towards Glenfarg village on 12th June 2013. The former NBR route from Cowdenbeath enters the view between field and forest to the right before disappearing under the M90. Hopes for reinstating a direct rail route from Edinburgh to Perth will probably rest on tunneling some four miles to Strathearn, initially through the hills to the immediate right of the motorway.
Location: Glenfarg
Company: Glenfarg Line (North British Railway)
12/06/2013 David Spaven