Here Come the Trains! The Early Railways - Part One

What does the following little humorous story (contained in Alexander Hislop's Book of Scottish Anecdote) tell us about long ago?  Soon after the first railways came to our part of Scotland a young Forfar woman named Nelly Johnson was excitedly taking her first journey by train.  As she was going along she heard the porters on board cry out 'Farnell'.

   Non Scottish readers will have to bear with me at this point.  Farnell is actually a place in Angus, and there was once a railway station there.  But far to the girl sounded like the local dialect version of the word 'where'.  So, thinking that someone was calling 'Where [is] Nell?'

   In answer to the the imaginary enquiry, Nell called back:  'Here I'm just, fa [who] wants me?'

   To me, the tale shows, in a small way, that railways opened up the world in a way that had never happened before. Even the place and word of Farnell,  just a few miles from Forfar, may have been unfamiliar to Nelly from Forfar.






   Travelling by rail could be dangerous for the unwary.  An English passenger once alighted when the train stopped on the Dundee-Arbroath line.  Unfortunately it had halted for some unknown reason by Dundee's docks and the traveller fell straight into the water. The train guard located him, after some difficulty, by the feeble beams of his lantern and informed him politely in fine local patois: 'Aha, I see ye noo, sir! Dinna be feart, but jist hover aboot a blink an we'll sune tak ye oot!'                                                                                                                              

The First Railways, Changes in the Landscape

According to D. H. Edwards in Glimpses of Men and Manners About the Muirside (1920, p. 53), the railway caused a real change in the Angus landscape. Here he talks about the district from Guthrie to Farnell, but the effects were of course wider. Laying the railway, he says, 'caused quite a number of small crofts to be either split up, curtailed, or swallowed up by larger holdings'. Another effect was the influx of labourers who worked on establishing the new transport system: 'To meet the needs of the influx of railway workers, weaving shops became sleeping apartments, and handlooms were converted into bedsteads.' The Guthrie family of Guthrie Castle raised major objections to the plans to lay the line over part of their estate. Due to their influence the owners of the line were persuaded to model the bridge over their land, at the main entrance to the castle grounds, so it looked like a medieval gateway. Proving the adage that money goes to money, the Guthries were given £1,400 for the ediface. It was not all bad news for the poorer paid classes either, since it was noticed that there was a significant amount of agricultural workers using the third class service in the early years of the Arbroath-Forfar railway because the fares were well within their means.

Early Railways in the County

  The line between Dundee and Newtyle was started in 1826 and completed five years later. It was the first railway in the northern half of Scotland. Two side branches were soon added to aid the transportation of farm and other goods along Strathmore.  These were the Newtyle and Coupar Angus Railway and the Newtyle and Glammis Railway, opened in 1837-8.

  Some of the original main line exists, in the form of a tunnel 340 yards (311 metres) long which runs beneath the Dundee Law. This was partially open until the latter part of the 20th century and there has been talk of re-opening it as a sort of heritage site or tourist location, but this has come to nothing as yet. Engineering and safety issues are probably a factor in the tunnel remaining blocked up. The first steam engines were under powered and could not cope with steep gradients, so the original line had three rope-worked steep inclines. The first was the Law Incline, immediately north of the station at Dundee. Following a level section came the Balbeeuchly Incline, and the final one was the Hatton Incline, before the descent into Newtyle.

 This early route was renowned (or notorious) for offering a physically challenging ride to passengers on board. The first carriages on the route were open, but unfortunately sparks from the locomotive began to set the passengers’ clothes on fire. As a makeshift measure, the carriages were securely covered with canvas. Tarpaulins attached to the end of passenger carriages in the early days, when it was windy, accelerated the speed of the train considerably. All the rolling stock was still very primitive.

  A story is told about a country dame who made use of this transportation in the very early days:

On one occasion, a country wife was on her journey for the first time with her basket of eggs for Dundee market, when the rope of the incline-engine broke, and the carriages ran down with increasing momentum till all were turned out; though her eggs were smashed she had no idea it was an accident, for, when afterwards asked how she like the train, she replied – ‘It was a guy gude ride, but it was a rough affpittin.’(Strathmore, Past and Present,  Rev.J. G. MacPherson, 1885, p. 150.)

  The Dundee and Newtyle Railway was swallowed up by the Dundee and Perth Railway. The costly and cumbersome inclines were re-routed to facilitate gentler passage in the 1860s routes in the period 1860 to 1868. The line closed to passengers in 1955.

   The Arbroath and Forfar Railway came into being in the late 1830s. As with the line connecting Dundee with Newtyle and Strathmore, the incentive to connect Forfar and Arbroath was mercantile, spurred on by rapid growth in textile production in Forfar. The transportation of raw materials to inland towns and distribution of finished goods was of prime importance in that era. The authorities considered digging a canal between the two burghs and the route was surveyed before being dropped in favour of a railway system. (Dundee had also considered a canal option into Strathmore in 1817.)