The Courier & Advertiser (Fife Edition)
The day trains finally
It is hard to believe a railway ever existed in Forfar, but 40 years ago a passenger train made its final journey to the Angus town.
The Forfar Farewell was organised by the Angus Railway Group on June 5 1982.
The line was only being used by goods trains after passenger travel ceased in September 1967 but some of the track further north had already been lifted.
In due course British Rail would dispose of the land for development.
The final journey was a very sad day but also a celebration of a service that had been running since January 1839, when Queen Victoria was on the throne.
At one time the Strathmore main line, opened by the Scottish Midland Junction Railway in 1848, carried the fastest scheduled trains in the country.
Adding to the party-like atmosphere and feeling of stepping back in time, many of the passengers were dressed in Edwardian period costume.
The last train probably meant the most to Allan Fairweather from Carnoustie, who was stationmaster at Forfar between 1953 and 1957.
During that time the station was enjoying one of its busiest periods and he had 80 staff, from porters to signalmen, under his control.
“The train brought back many memories for me but it was really sad to see the station in the condition it was in,” he said.
“It’s difficult to imagine what things were once like when you see the weeds growing through the platforms today.”
Class 40 diesel loco 40143 drew up that Saturday at the former Forfar North Junction pulling six coaches at 12.13pm, then, at 12.47pm, it made the run back to Perth.
The train made the same journey again and then left Forfar at 5.15pm for the return journey to Perth where it arrived at 6.47pm.
A steam engine would have been impractical with no watering facilities on the line. It stopped at many stations, although many of those platforms were already gone.
Forfar eventually lost its sparse freight traffic during the following weeks.
Gordon Casely is a member of the Angus Railway Group and was among those who travelled on the final passenger train from Perth to Forfar in 1982.
The train was piped off the platform from Perth to the skirl of old Victorian melodies like The Road to Mandalay and My Grandfather’s Clock.
The pipers left the dilapidated Forfar platform to play on the tracks.
Gordon broke it down further.
“We were asked to dress up in Edwardian costume, if possible,” he said. “Somehow I became involved as a piper to pipe the last train out of Forfar.
“I wore the kilt in Edwardian fashion with spats and long sporran.
“There was a fellow piper there too, so we played away standing between the rails in front of the locomotive.
“My poor fellow piper stopped playing at one point. He was fearful that the engine would start and run us over.
“My son Bruce, then 10, accompanied me.
Forfar On This Day author David Potter said the day was very hot and the atmosphere was partylike, with people on the train who had travelled frequently on the line.
“It is now generally agreed that it had been a mistake to close down the Stanley to Kinnaber line, but of course it had been a political decision because Forfar voted the wrong way for the government of the day in 1967,” he said.
“Many people now think that there might even be a chance some day of a resurrection of the Forfar railway, given what has happened successfully in the Borders.
“None of this detracts from the glorious history of Forfar Station, which was, in its heyday, one of the busiest per head of the population in Scotland, with trains running to Dundee, Arbroath, Kirriemuir and Brechin as well as Aberdeen and Glasgow.”