This thread was originally written and published in December 2017 and a further part in May 2019. It has been joined into a single post and edited and corrected as applicable.

This thread features #NowAndThen photomontages of long gone railway stations, tramways and bridges in Edinburgh and Lieth; period photos overlaid on the current streetscape to show just how much or little things have changed over time.

Duke Street in 1954 on the last day of service for the No. 25 tram. This service ran from Corstorphine to Portobello King’s Road via Leith Walk and the Links. Not much else has changed on this side of the road, although the occupants of the buildings certainly have. On the left was the Palace Cinema, with a snooker hall above. It is now a J. D. Wetherspoon pub.

Commercial Street in 1955. The No. 17 tram from Granton passes the “Highland Queen” bonded warehouse of MacDonald and Muir. It is running across the railway lines that crossed into the docks from the former North British railway at North Leith / Leith Citadel station. The bond is now flats, through the West Dock Gate where the railway ran is the now the Scottish Government building – Victoria Quay. The Old West and East docks are infilled, unimaginatively used as car parks. The Victoria Dock is cut off from the harbour basin and is a sterile and bleak water feature in front of Victoria Quay.

King’s Road at Portobello in the 1950s. The No. 12 tram from Corstorphine via Leith, it has just passed the ghost of a car heading the other way to Portobello. The background is dominated by the great red brick lump of Ebenenzer J. Macrae’s Corporation electric power station.

Tollcross in 1956. There was a tramway depot here – where the central fire station now is – and the route was also a junction where 3 routes from the suburbs converged and then split immediately into two to head into the city by different routes. As such this was always a busy place on the network and this scene is busy with shoppers and tramcars. The tenement on the right and the castle are all that remain of the original buildings in this shot now.

Trinity Crescent in the 1950s. A no. 17 tram squeezes under the bridge carrying the railway from Trinity Station along Lower Granton Road to the docks. The low bridge and tight S-shaped turn of the road meant that the tramway here was single line in the middle of the road, with the overhead line lowered. A set of traffic signals allowed only 1 tram at a time into this short section and warned motor vehicles that a tram was about to pass as their route swung onto the right lane to make the turn.

And Trinity again in 1986. A ghost train crosses Trinity Road on track removal duties. Click on the link to the EdinPhoto website to see more images of this series.

Moving on to animated transitions, here is Balgreen Halt station. A 1934 addition to the suburban railway network by the LNER (London & North Eastern Railway), it was closed in 1968. Estimate the old photo is early 1960s.

And at the end of the line at Corstorphine. Always a hard one to get your head around as no hint of the stations presence is left under the 1980s housing, beyond the name “Station Road”

Side fact, Corstorphine had extraordinarily long platforms for a suburban station (250m, sufficient for a 12 coach train of 60 foot stock), I believe this was because the railway company hoped that a new barracks to replace the Georgian cavalry establishment at Piershill would be built nearby. The new barracks were ultimately built at Redford instead but Corstorphine was left with its overly large station. There were 2 full platforms and 2 full length carriage sidings. As a result it was used to stable and clean coaching stock overnight and on occasions such as rugby and football matchdays.

Another overlooked Edinburgh suburban station; the awkwardly located Piershill at the foot of Smokey Brae, between Meadowbank and Restalrig. The road here running under the bridge is Clockmill Road, which connected to the Clockmill Lane. This was the ancient route from the Canongate to Restalrig, cut in two by the London Road when it was built in the early 1820s. The road was obliterated and the bridge cut off by the groundworks for the 1970s Commonwealth Games stadium, the velodrome being built on top of the road. The bridge is now blocked up as a garage, but may be re-opened as a through route in the future when the eastern end of the stadium site is redeveloped as housing.

Leith Walk station – no, not the big one at the Foot, but the one called Leith Walk towards the top.The demolished tenements of Shrub Hill and Shrub Place are in the background, plus an intriguing belfry. I’m guessing it was the old school next to Pilrig Model Buildings, which later became the “Royal Caledonian Bazaar”.

Now the site of the “Inchkeith House” multi, the Royal Caledonian Bazaar was a “posting and livery establishment”; basically a horse transport depot. The proprietor was one John Croall. The Croalls were established in the horse business and were pioneers of motoring in Edinburgh. They gave their name, unsurprisingly, to Croall Place, the tenement at the top of Leith Walk where it meets Mcdonald Road. Croall & Croall later built car and bus bodies and had a number of works around the West Port and Lothian Road. They later became part of the SMT (Scottish Motor Transport) empire.

Granton Road, once an important suburban commuter station and tram route. It was much more conveniently located for the wealthy suburb of Trinity than the station of that name, and later for the big new housing scheme at Boswall.

There’s an old cast iron column just outside where the station was, I always assumed it was a tramway pole for the overhead wires. This photo shows it supported no wires – there’s an actual tramway pole right behind it – and it had a crown-shaped vent cap. It’s not a pole or a lamp post at all, it’s actually a sewer vent – a stink pipe – which is why it has survived.

We move on to Granton station itself. One of the first in Edinburgh and originally the site of a pioneering train ferry to Burntisland before the Forth was bridged. It closed in 1925 as an economy as there was little need by this time for a passenger station in the middle of the docks – most people taking the ferry across the Forth found the electric tramway much more convenient to get into the city than taking the train.

The slip for the train ferries is still used by the Royal Forth Yacht Club. Thomas Bouch’s “Floating Railway” was an ingenious and effective solution to bridging the Forth before the technology allowed a permanent structure. Basically an early, steam-raised linkspan that lowered a ramp on to a special ferry boat, allowing wagons and carriages to be run aboard. The whole apparatus, rails and all, was on a great wheeled carriage, allowing it to move with the tides. The rails were in short sections, bolted together in such a way that they could flex.

Thomas Bouch is an engineer remembered for his greatest and most infamous creation, the first Tay Bridge, but he had a long career in which he constructed many pioneering and innovative solutions to the problems of getting railways across obstacles.

I’m quite chuffed with this image, which shows the evolution of the Upper Drawbridge at Sandport Place. Not only is the river much higher now since the docks were dammed, but the deck was widened and the central arch of the current bridge replaced the lifting section.

The Water of Leith is no longer a tidal river, as in the 1960s a set of lock gates were installed at the mouth of the docks to keep the dock basin always filled with water to allow bigger and deeper ships to use the port, and not be so restricted by the tides when coming and going. The water level these days is frequently within a foot of the central arch but you can still see the “river bed” in the right conditions only a few feet below that, there must be a good 20 foot of mud and silt and sludge built up on the river bed, unable to be washed out by the tide.

The next image is the same spot as before but looking the other way, to St. Ninian’s Wharf (named for the old North Leith Kirk behind, with its distinctive Dutch tower). The site of a dry dock and boatbuilding yard in the 1850s and 60s.

The photo confused me for a good while, as I assumed that the ship must be in the dry dock, which was one of the first dry dock in Scotland so pre-dated the photo by about 100 years. I later realised that the ship being built in the picture is not in the dry dock at all, but on a building slip alongside, with a temporary coffer dam following the line of the river wall – marked in red on the Town Plan below.

That ship may even be on a “patent slip”, a Leith invention.

If you have found this useful, informative or amusing and would like to help contribute towards the running costs of this site (including keeping it ad-free) or to the book-buying budget, why not consider supporting me on ko-fi.

---

_{These threads © 2017-2023, Andy Arthur}