The Railway Era

"The Railway Age": In the 1840'sthe "Railway Age" was developing in Great Britain and Scotland in particular. In 1846 alone 1,263 Bills were presented to Parliament seeking to enable the construction of railways. A line was proposed at this time to link Princes Street Edinburgh with the Port of Leith at Trinity Pier and laterly in 1846 with Granton Harbour. This line ran, at right angles from the now Waverley Station, via a tunnel to Scotland Street and Leith.

Railway Companies absorbed each other rapidly in these years as traffic grew and new routes opened. The North British Railway incorporated in 1846 to link Edinburgh with Berwick on the English Border absorbed the Edinburgh, Perth and Dundee Railway in 1862 which had previously been amalgamating smaller Companies. In all the NBR took over fifty or so independent companies and also controlled the Union Canal between Edinburgh & Falkirk as well as several ports and the ferry systems across the Forth and Tay. At this time their was extreme competition between companies for business.

The expansion required the services of a Consultant Engineer and to this effect Thomas Bouch aged 26 was recruited. In 1850 Bouch developed a train ferry between Granton and Burntisland. The ferry named the Leviathan was the first train ferry in the world and was for the conveyance of goods wagons only. Passengers still had to detrain and board the open ferry from a seperate pier. The train ferries and attendant rail service were a vast improvement on previous journey times of two days by completing the distance between Edinburgh and Dundee in three and a half hours. The Railway Company Boards however sought to further reduce journey times by introducing a seamless service without break of journey by bridging the rivers Tay and Forth.