Campbeltown line to be remembered 90 years after it closed
The Campbeltown and Machrihanish Light Railway has been recalled in good time to mark the 90th anniversary of the Scottish 2ft 3in line’s closure, which falls in 2022 (reports Hugh Dougherty).
Campbeltown Heritage Centre volunteers have erected an interpretation board on the Kintyre town’s Hall Street describing the ‘Wee train’, as the line was affectionately known locally.
Trains on Scotland’s only public, steam-worked, narrow gauge railway, terminated at Hall Street, picking up steamer passengers keen to make the six-mile trip to view the Atlantic coast at Machrihanish’s sandy beach.
The board shows one of the line’s two Andrew Barclay-built 0-6-2T locomotives, includes a map of the route and tells how its origins lay in a four-mile line, dating from 1876, linking Campbeltown with Kilkivan Pit to bring coal down to the town for export.
The line was upgraded, extended and opened in 1906 between Campbeltown and Machrihanish, to provide passenger and goods services in addition to coal traffic.
Despite relatively healthy traffic figures into the 1920s, uncertainty over the future of the local coal industry and competition from private bus operators brought the end of the line in early 1932. The track was lifted later that year and the locos cut up after one of them, ‘Atlantic’ worked the demolition train.
Local councillor Donald Kelly revealed that there had once been tentative plans for a revival of the line. “I headed up a local group some years ago looking at how to turn the whole length of the trackbed into a walking and cycle path with interpretation boards along the line,” he said, adding; “We also looked at reviving the actual railway in some form as a tourist attraction, but the idea didn’t progress.”
He added; “I very much welcome the interpretation board at the harbour to keep the memory of this unique line alive – I hope we can mark the 90th anniversary of the closure more fully, too.”