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HISTORY The Second World War had devastated Scotland's railways due to the LMS and LNER rolling stock in Scotland being transferred to the major cities in Northern England in order to replace what had been destroyed by German air-raids. Only state intervention could provide the necessary re-supplying of rolling stock and save several unprofitable routes from closure, so the lines were nationalised in 1948 , along with the rest of the railways and became Scottish region. THE NETWORK Scottish region covered all of Scotland 's railways along with a few commuter trains in Cumbria and northern Northumberland . This would be greatly reduced in the 1960's. Its most important stations were:
Scottish region had major interchanges with North eastern region at Berwick-upon-Tweed and London midland region at Carlisle . THE BEECHING CUTS Sadly, the under-used Highland station at Strathpeffer had already closed by 1955 and the nearby station at Achterneed followed suit in the 1960s. Castle Douglas , Peebles , Leadburn and Penicuik in the Scottish Lowlands , Grantown-on-Spey and Nethy Bridge stations in the Scottish Highlands were closed during the 1960s , despite heavy local protests, due to the lack of passengers and freight! Peterhead station become a freight only station in the 1960s and was closed all togeather in the 1970s . At about this time the freight station at Aberdeen Waterloo Street was mooted for closure and had some tracks lifted, but its final closure was in the mid 1970s due to dwindling business. Connon station near Inverness closed in the 1960s, but was re-opened in 2005 INSIDE THE COMMUTER-BELT The stations at Edinburgh Waverley , Edinburgh Haymarket , Glasgow Queen Street and Glasgow Central were improved and renovated in the 1980's and 1990's, but the 20 year old plan to re-build Penicuik station are still unfulfilled and a line had closed at Stirling station by the 1990's. THE MOFFAT BRANCH The Bettock to Moffat branch in southern Lanarkshire became a freight only line in the 1950's and closed in the 1960's. By that time, passenger trains had been withdrawn from Beetock as well, which continued as a freight station until the 1970's. It still has an active train stabling siding to this day and the partly demolished platform is still in situ leading to hope that the branch line may be restored as a Summer tourist attraction. TRAINS AND ROLLING STOCK Steam traction ended in the 1950's with the introduction of diesel trains in the Highlands and 25KV over-head electric cable powered rolling stock in the Scottish Central Belt , Edinburgh, Glasgow and on all major express routes throughout the country. A mixture of trains were used in the Lowlands. New Electric 'Blue Trains' with air-assisted sliding doors, were introduced during the early 1950's and were a great success, until they were scraped, along with diesel units in the 1990s . The 'Blue trains' were named after there unique shade of 'electric' blue livery when they were first introduced. MAJOR ACCIDENTS Thankfully, this was a rather accident-free era in the history of Scotland's railways! Only a few Glaswegian local trains had minor collisions and a few Highland trains hit some Winter Avalanches , but none were all that serious! PRIVATISATION The Scottish region became Scotrail and handed the Glasgow to Edinburgh via Carlisle, Haltwhistle and Newcastle-upon-Tyne line over to Northern Spirit. SOURCES The Ian Alan Books -
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