Fast track to Bangour hospital treatment
The Courier and our friends at West Lothian Local History Library have teamed up to help readers take a trip down Memory Lane.
We will be featuring regular photos and details from West Lothian’s past.
This week we tell the story of The Wee Bangour Express.
It was perhaps the shortest branch railway line in Scotland, a mere 1½ miles of single track from a junction on the Edinburgh to Bathgate line, west of Uphall Station, via Dechmont to the terminus in Bangour Hospital.
It all began with a decision of the Edinburgh District Lunacy Board in the 1890s to establish a major asylum outwith the city.
A site at Bangour was chosen and plans were drawn up for a village type of asylum based on a German model, with rail facilities included from the start.
The railway was soon laid and at first transported mainly building materials for the new hospital.
It was formally taken over by the North British Railway in 1903, although the first passenger train did not run until 1905.
Affectionately known as the Wee Bangour or the Wee Bangour Express, there were three or four daily return journeys (except Sundays), with an extra one on Saturdays for the benefit of hospital visitors, and one daily goods trip with coal, stores and medical supplies.
Guests travelled on the Bangour Railway for the official opening of the hospital on October 3, 1906.
A special train from Waverley Station carried the Lord Provost, Sir Peter Cranston, officials and members of the lunacy board to Bangour for the opening ceremony performed by the Earl of Rosebery.
The First World War brought a dramatic change when the War Office designated Bangour as a war hospital and resident patients had to be dispersed, some as far as Aberdeen, to make way for wounded soldiers.
The casualties could now be conveyed direct by ambulance trains from Southampton or Dover Docks right into Bangour, a journey of 12-14 hours.
Trains came in all round the clock, often with as many as 12 coaches. As the trains left Waverley, a telephone call was made to Bangour, and the steam hooter at the hospital power station was sounded to warn staff and volunteers of the train’s imminent arrival.
The Armistice in 1918 brought the War to an end, and on January 1,1922 Bangour was returned for civilian use as an asylum.
The railway line was eventually closed on August 1, 1921 and little remains to show where the railway once stood.
The line of the track is now a pleasant walkway along the southern edge of the village and a fragment of the platform can be seen near the boiler house.
This information was taken from the‘The Wee Bangour Express’booklet by A.D. Stirling.
The photographs, maps and newspaper articles are available to view at the West Lothian Local History Library.
If you would like to find out more about Bangour, the Great War or railways in West Lothian, contact the West Lothian Local History Library on 01506 282491 or email localhistory@westlothian.gov.uk.