The Caledonian Railway's Princes Street Stations and Caledonian Hotel

The Caledonian Railway’s Princes Street Stations and Caledonian Hotel

The Caledonian Railway entered Edinburgh from Carstairs Junction on 15 February, 1848. The new railway terminated in a wooden building some 180 feet in length and 54 feet wide, located on the south-western side of Lothian Road, at that time almost on the western outskirts of the city.

A locomotive depot was also established at Dalry.

Although the station was described as nothing more than a glorified wooden shack it was to be the Caledonian Railway’s major passenger base in Edinburgh for the next twenty-two years.

The Caledonian Railway’s Anglo-Scottish services commenced running in March, 1848. Trains from Edinburgh combined at Carstairs with trains from Glasgow and ran to London in combination. This was the first line to offer travel without change of carriage between Edinburgh and London, passengers on the rival North British Railway were required to cross the River Tweed at Berwick-upon-Tweed on foot to continue their rail journey.

Passenger services from Edinburgh to Glasgow via Carstairs commenced on 1 April, 1848.

The first station may have been satisfactory when first opened in Lothian Road but in practical use it was clearly inadequate. The station also provoked numerous complaints from the public for its appearance and general shabbiness.

It had a single platform which served both arrivals and departures and a two road goods shed with a single loading platform.

Despite grandiose plans put forward by the CR to replace the original wooden shed (which was to be closed in any case in 1870) with a larger, Italianate stone structure, more in fitting for Scotland’s capital city, this aspiration was not to be. The railway company, beset with financial problems, was short of cash.

During 1865 the CR was considering how to improve the ‘shack’ and had considered making arrangements with the NBR to use Waverley station. However, the NBR was hostile to this and the idea came to nothing.

The CR’s second attempt at building a worthy Caledonian Railway terminus in Edinburgh was to result in yet another temporary wooden structure, not dissimilar to the one it was replacing and once more lying just as inconveniently placed as its predecessor in Lothian Road although the passenger part of the new station now had two platforms.

The new station called Princes Street Station was opened on 2 May, 1870.

During 1890 the wooden terminus building at Princes Street station was partly dismantled in preparation for improvement when, on 16 June, a fire broke out substantially destroying much of the buildings.

As plans had already been put in place for a new station, a third attempt was made to provide Edinburgh with an appropriate Caledonian Railway station.

This fine neo-Baroque stone building was designed by the noted Edinburgh architectural practice of Peddie & Browne and was to cost £250,000.

The new Caledonian Railway station lay conveniently at street level. Sometime later, as city boundaries expanded, the station was to find itself directly in the heart of Edinburgh’s fashionable West End.

The dimensions of the new station were 850 feet in length and 190 feet in width, providing 18,000 square yards of area covered by a long-bayed roof. Initially it had its own power station, to the west of the station in Rutland Court, to power its lights.

In the building of this new station the Caledonian Railway proved itself to be no more sympathetic to existing Edinburgh historic infrastructure than the NBR had been in earlier days. The company spent considerable sums of money demolishing many existing buildings in the northern part of Lothian Road and the south side of Rutland Square.

This third and final station, still a long, low building, was built between 1890 and 1893 and came into use in 1894, having been perspicaciously constructed to allow at some later date the construction of a hotel over it, to lie along the eastern side and north frontage. This was to be the large, palatial and very popular Caledonian Railway - Princes Street Station Hotel.

The hotel was built in the manner of all grand railway hotels and was constructed in distinctive red sandstone above the station.

The hotel opened its doors in 1903. Over the years the hotel has hosted many celebrities, including many of Hollywood’s most famous film stars of the 1950s, including Laurel and Hardy and the singing cowboy, Roy Rodgers and his equally famous horse, Trigger. Both were photographed descending the main staircase in the hotel in a publicity shot for the ‘Scotsman’ newspaper. I may add, I have also had the privilege of staying in the hotel as my firm’s Christmas Parties were held in the hotel.

In Caledonian Railway days, the hotel boasted 250 rooms and 70 bathrooms. The hotel when constructed was not to everyone’s taste and indeed was described by the Cockburn Society as an architectural excrescence and an eyesore which had utterly ruined the fine views along Princes Street from the Mound.

As well as trains, the hotel was served by Edinburgh’s pre 1956 trams and today, Edinburgh’s new trams stop within walking distance of the hotel.

The new Princes Street station, proving very popular and successful, was extended between 1899 and 1903 moving even closer to Princes Street. It was now ideally situated in the centre of what was by this time Edinburgh’s affluent West End where there were many financial institutions.

The station was known to both the local populace and users alike as the ‘Caley’ station. Indeed, across from the station in Lothian Road was the ‘Caley’ cinema which is now a J D Wetherspoon pub called ‘The Caley Picture House’.

The station was large, light and airy with seven curved platforms providing adequate standage for all the traffic running at the time and to come. Nevertheless, the station was regarded by the railway company as suffering from the problems posed by its inherent restrictive terminal configuration and plans were set in motion to convert it to a through station, company eyes still being concentrated on access to the eastern side of Leith Docks which it finally achieved with its ill-fated 1903 Leith New Lines.

By the early 1900s, train services to Lanark, Carstairs and the south, Ayr, Moffat, Peebles, Oban, Stirling, Perth and Dundee were departing from Edinburgh Princes Street on a daily basis. In addition, there were local trains serving the many stations on the Balerno, Granton and Leith branches as well as the Barnton branch. Although stations were commenced at Newhaven, Ferry Road and Leith Walk on the CR’s 1903 Leith New Lines these stations never saw passenger service. Parts of the elevated section of this line, which ran from Newhaven Junction to Seafield, can still to be seen.

The last British Rail station master at Princes Street was Roderick (Roddie) McKenzie, who was later to become the station master at Edinburgh Waverley before the grade of station master was dispensed with in the early 1960s.

On 7 September, 1964 the former CR Haymarket branch line (Duff Street siding) was finally connected to the former E&GR (NBR)at Haymarket.

Although regular Edinburgh Princes Street to Leith North passenger service ceased on 28 April, 1962, nearly six months later, on 16 October, 1962, the very last passenger train ran from Leith North where a temporary platform had been erected, to convey King Olav V of Norway, having arrived by ship at Leith Docks, on a state visit to Edinburgh Princes Street station where he was met by both the Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh. This was the first royal state visit to the United Kingdom that did not include London. It was the station’s step-free access which commended arrival there, not that there remained any former NBR stations in Leith which could have conveyed the King up to Edinburgh.

On 5 September, 1965 the ‘Caley’ station was closed.

The station, with the exception of the hotel, was demolished between 1969 and 1970 with the West Approach Road being built along the former track bed in the early 1970s. Although sadly long gone, the ‘Caley’ is still fondly remembered. I recall attending my aunt’s wedding in 1963 when I was about twelve. After the reception, the wedding party made its way to the station to see the newly-weds off on honeymoon complete with piper. Instead of waving the newly-weds off along with the other guests, I wandered off to the end of the platform to check out the two steam engines that were at the head of the train taking them down to England.

The magnificent five-star Caledonian Hotel, now an integral part of Princes Street and the West End still stands today and is currently being extended. The hotel’s name had been changed to the Waldorf Astoria Edinburgh. However, to the residents of Edinburgh and others it was still the ‘Caley’ so much so that the name of the hotel has reverted back to being called ‘The Caledonian Hotel’.

To see pictures of the station please visit my website www.trainbuff.net under the album called Edinburgh, Granton and Leith Railways.