The North British Railway's Leith Central Station

The North British Railway’s determination to keep its great rival, the Caledonian Railway, from gaining a foothold in Leith, took the decision in 1891 to build a short branch line northwards from Abbeyhill Junction to a new station at the Foot of Leith Walk in central Leith, notwithstanding, in 1884, the NBR had informed Leith Town Council that a further line to Leith was not viable.

Contracts to build the line were not let until the end of 1897 and it wasn’t until 1 July, 1903 that Leith Central was opened for passenger traffic with trains running every thirty minutes on the six minutes of journey time to the Waverley.

The change of mind by the NBR to build a line to central Leith was made as the CR, after having several schemes rejected, had in 1890 settled on a scheme to build an elevated line across Leith from Newhaven Junction to Seafield for both passenger and goods traffic.

This line was eventually built and was called the Caledonian Railway’s 1903 Leith New Lines.

However, although provision was made for stations at Ferry Road and Leith Walk the stations were never completed so never saw passenger service.

The reason for this was the CR, in securing Leith Town Council's support for the line through Leith, guaranteed never to charge more for the Edinburgh-Leith fare than their rivals, the NBR.

This was a disastrous decision as the NBR line from Abbeyhill to Leith Central Station was a fraction of the length of the CR line and much less costly to build.

That the new CR line never carried timetabled passenger traffic came as no real surprise.

The eventual construction of Leith Central by the NBR saw the largest station ever constructed in Britain from scratch in the twentieth century. The station was much larger than necessary and as such was never used to its full potential.

The area the NBR required to build the station was already well developed so a significant amount of property had to be demolished, this included the Central Hall, a billiards emporiam that had begun life as as a Chapel.

The Central Bar which was just around the corner from the Central Hall would also need to be demolished. The NBR agreed to provide the proprietor of the pub, John Doig, with a replacement establishment.

To this day the pub is still called the Central Bar and John Doig's name can still be found within the stained glass panels displayed in its windows.

The tiled interior of the Central Bar is equal to that of the Cafe Royal in Edinburgh.

Although the actual branch line was only one mile long, it took twelve years before the line and the new station in Leith was completed.

The very much understated opening of Leith Central took place on 1 July, 1903.

The cost of the station was £500,000.00, (£57 Million 2026).

Passengers had difficulty in finding the entrance to the station as the NBR hadn’t put up any signage, entrance originally being obtained through a very nondescript door.

The Rev. Thomas Crerar of North Leith United Free Church wrote to the NBR complaining that he couldn't find the entrance to station and accidently found himself in the Central Bar.

Eventually, the station was fully opened with a subway entrance at the foot of Easter Road.

The only destination being offered at the time of opening was to the Waverley.

Trains on this short sharp journey were nicknamed 'Penny Jerks' by locals.

Despite the trials and tribulations of getting the line to Leith, the station became quite popular mainly due to the ‘Pilrig Muddle’ on the tramway system where passengers had to change trams, from the electrically operated Leith trams (opened in 1905) to the cable operated system of Edinburgh (opened 1888) at Pilrig on the boundary between Edinburgh and Leith.

However, on 22 June, 1923 the ‘muddle’ came to an end when the Edinburgh system was electrified and through running by electric trams from Edinburgh to Leith became possible following the acrimonious amalgamation of the burghs of Leith and Edinburgh in 1920.

Inevitably, Leith Central began to lose passengers mainly because of the inconvenient public access, the notorious Waverley Steps, at the Edinburgh Waverley station and so started a thirty-one-year decline.

The station was used to bring back the remains of the soldiers, many of who came from Leith, of the 7^th Battalion, the Royal Scots, Leith Territorial Battalion based in Dalmeny Street, Leith who perished in Britain’s worst railway disaster which occurred outside the Caledonian Railway’s signal box at Quintinshill near Gretna on 22 May, 1915.

The funeral train left Carlisle and travelled to Edinburgh on the NBR’s Waverley Route arriving at Leith Central station.

There was a funeral procession from Dalmeny Street which proceeded up Leith Walk to Rosebank Cemetery where the men were laid to rest in a corner almost on the boundary of Edinburgh and Leith.

In 1937 there was a fire at the station which although it caused some damage, the two platforms that survived proved sufficient for the amount of services the station provided.

As part of the original scheme for the NBR branch to Leith it was proposed to build a station at Hawkhill having interchange facilities with the CR line so creating a northern suburban circle.

This never came to fruition but on 8 April, 1950, Easter Road Park Halt, a single platform on the line to Leith Central, was opened to serve Easter Road Football Stadium the home of Hibernian Football Club.

The halt remained open until January, 1964 although it wasn’t officially closed until 24 July, 1967.

Strangely, although incoming trains stopped directly outside the football stadium, return trains left from Abbeyhill station which meant fans walking up Easter Road.

Following a surprisingly short working career, work was started in 1955 to convert the station into what was probably Britain's first DMU maintenance depot.

The DMUs were introduced on a dieselised Edinburgh Waverley-Glasgow Queen Street service.

Given that there was no real opposition to the conversion of the station to a maintenance depot shows how little regard British Railways and indeed the general public had for the station nobody wanted.

The closure of Leith Central station took place in 1972, the empty station lay vacant for around seventeen years before the train shed built by William Arrol and Sons, was finally demolished in 1989.

The site is now occupied by a supermarket and soft play centre.

Leith Central in its ruined was unusual in inspiring Irvine Welsh's controversial book 'Trainspotting'.

I may add that my granny's cousin, James (Jimmy) Gordon retired as Station Foreman, Leith Central station in 1965. He resided in the now demolished former E&DR/NBR South Leith Station in Constitution Street, Leith.

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