THE ST ANDREWS RAILWAY - Will Aitken

Will Aitken took fellow club members on a nostalgic journey in his talk about the former St Andrews railway.

Will admitted to being a trainspotter and Hornby train set owner in his younger days and he remembered family holiday journeys by rail to St Andrews.

Will gave a historical timeline to the formation of rail lines in the area. In 1845 the East Neuk of Fife Railway Company ran a line from Leven to Anstruther which was mainly for goods traffic.

In 1849 work started on a line from Leuchars to Balgove at a cost of £21,000. The engineer was Thomas Bouch (who also designed the ill-fated first Tay Bridge) and the line opened in June 1852. The line was not well constructed with problems involving the bridges over the Eden and severe turns for the train engines.

There were calls for the line to be extended to link with Anstruther and a new St Andrews station was built.

After many delays, including when the contractor went bust, work went ahead in 1885 and the completed line from St Andrews to Anstruther was opened in June 1887.

There were stations at St Andrews Old, St Andrews New, Mount Melville, Stravithie, Boarhills, Kingsbarns, Crail and Anstruther.

The holiday destinations of St Andrews and the East Neuk were initially popular with many people but the number of rail passengers and goods carried then slowly declined.

By 1930 the little stations between St Andrews and Anstruther closed and after the Second World War as car use increased so passenger traffic declined further and the Beeching cuts saw the Leven-St Andrews line shut in 1965.

The line between Leuchars and St Andrews continued for another few years with the last train running on January 4, 1969.

Will showed a fascinating video compilation of a train journey from Cameron Bridge by Leven to St Andrews in the sixties passing all the many stations en-route. He also illustrated his talk with a model railway film showing a trip from Guardbridge to St Andrews with model layouts of the two stations.

Will also made reference to Starlink which is campaigning to re-introduce a rail link to St Andrews.

In “any questions” following the talk, member James Yule recounted fond memories of trips from Glasgow to Crail when he was a fireman aboard the steam locomotives.

Grace Morris proposed a vote of thanks for Will’s excellent presentation which was superbly researched.