Caledonian Railway

General information

Brief History -

The original Caledonian Railway company was formed in the early 19th Century and was major Scottish railway company for nearly a century (1830's to 1923). Before the Caledonian Railway company was formed, Scotland and England's early railways were not connected. Before 1849, when the Caledonian Railway open its mainline, the quickest way to travel from Glasgow to London was to catch a train from Glasgow to Greenock, then travel between Greenock and Liverpool by ship and then from Liverpool to London by train. When the Caledonian mainline was opened in 1849 the journey time from Glasgow to London was slashed to only 12.5 hours.

In 1923, the Caledonian Railway company was absorbed into the London, Midland and Scottish (LMS) Railway by the Railways Act of 1921. This Act was passed to reduce the losses being made by the 120 seperate railway companies operating in the country. After 1921, there were four large companies; LMS, GWR, LNER and SR.

After the second world war, the battle scarred LMS along with the other 3 large railway companies were nationalised by the Transport Act of 1947 and became part of British Railways. British Railways (British Rail from 1965) operated the vast majority of rail transport in Great Britain from 1948 to 1997. During this period, the type of locomotive hauling trains gradually changed from steam to diesel. Steam hauled trains were eliminated in 1968 in favour of diesel and electric.

During the 1960's, the "Beeching Cuts" or "Beeching Axe" was inforced to close 30% of all route miles and 55% of all stations with the objective of reducing the large amounts of debt built up by BR due to competition to move freight by road. This meant that the vast majority of small branch lines were to close.

The Brechin to Montrose branch line was closed to passengers in the early 1950's but remained open to freight traffic until 1981 when it was preserved by Caledonian Railway (Brechin) Ltd.

In the early days of preservation, shuttle trains operated from Brechin only to just outside the station limits. In 1993, the railway received a Light Railway Order (LRO) which allowed trains to operated the full four mile line to Bridge of Dun.