Trains meeting hits the buffers
Due to the ongoing coronavirus pandemic the next meeting of Trains Across Strathearn ( TrAcS) will be delayed.
The group is behind a project to commemorate the Crieff and Strathearn railway lines and those who worked on them by erecting a lasting memorial as a tribute.
David Ferguson, who spearheads the group, hopes to announce details of the next TrAcs meeting in the not too distant future.
Meanwhile, he has put together some extracts regarding the earliest history of the line.
A newspaper report of March 22, 1864, stated: “We understand that the committee of the promoters of the Crieff and Methven Junction Railway (C&MJR) met the directors of the Crieff Junction Railway last Monday, for the purpose of coming to some arrangement about a terminus and the use of the present line from Highlandman Station to Crieff.
“The directors did not give an answer, but craved time to consider. In the event of a denial, the proposed C&MJR line will require to lay parallel rails over the distance mentioned.
“A rumour is current that in the latter case the Crieff Junction will oppose the third reading of the C&MJR Bill.”
Time moves on, but some things never change, and as usual it came down to the money as to who should pay for another line and the station accommodation.
The Crieff Junction Railway Company did indeed object to the proposed Crieff and Methven Junction line as it was guaranteed to eat into some of their traffic should it be approved; and a financial agreement could not be reached as to payment for joint use of the Crieff Terminus of the Crieff Junction Railway by the Crieff & Methven Junction Railway Company, nor in regards to running powers over the lines and their upkeep.
This resulted in the Crieff & Methven Junction Railway Company having to lay their own line from the vicinity of Highlandman Station to Crieff, parallel to the tracks of the Crieff Junction Railway Company.
Fortunately for the Crieff & Methven Junction Company, the Cri e f f Junction Railway Company was acquired by the Scottish Central Railway Company five months later on August 1, 1864, and the Scottish Central Railway Company was then in turn amalgamated with the Caledonian Railway Company on July 5, 1865, just at the time that the Crieff & Methven RC was looking to start building its stations.
The Caledonian Railway Company perhaps thought they were on to a good thing if the Crieff & Methven Junction Railway Company would build a new station in Crieff to the north of the existing terminus, which would be large enough to house the Crieff and Methven Junction, the Caledonian Railway and a new proposed line to Comrie.
The old terminus would then be converted into a goods station.
In the end the deal fell through – perhaps mainly through the collapse of the fledgling Crieff & Comrie Railway Company – and the Crieff & Methven Junction Railway trains had to share the old Terminus with the Caledonian trains.
This was not really a big issue as the Crieff & Methven Junction Railway trains were run by the Scottish North Eastern Railway Company, which would be amalgamated with the Caledonian from August 7, 1866.
However it was to be another 28 years before the Caledonian Railway Company eventually built Crieff its new station - on the opening of the line to Comrie in 1893.
If you would like to learn more about the Crieff Lines and help keep their memory alive you can find more information on Crieff Lines Railways Facebook page, and through the TrAcS Memorial Project.
• Pics: Stuart Armitt, unless stated.