Boddam Branch (Great North of Scotland Railway)

Introduction

This railway is closed. The railway provided a service from Boddam to Ellon with connections to Aberdeen. A hotel was built at Cruden Bay and had an electric tramway service. The line was owned by the Great North of Scotland Railway.




Dates

  /  /1895Formartine and Buchan Railway
Ellon rebuilt for Boddam Branch (Great North of Scotland Railway) opening.
02/08/1897Boddam Branch (Great North of Scotland Railway)
Boddam Branch opened to passengers.
02/08/1897Formartine and Buchan Railway
Ellon becomes a junction on the Boddam Branch (Great North of Scotland Railway) opened.
  /06/1899Boddam Branch (Great North of Scotland Railway)
Cruden Bay Hotel and Cruden Bay Hotel Tramway (Great North of Scotland Railway) opened.
31/10/1932Boddam Branch (Great North of Scotland Railway)
Boddam Branch closed to passengers.
  /  /1941Boddam Branch (Great North of Scotland Railway)
Cruden Bay Hotel Tramway (Great North of Scotland Railway) closed to all traffic.
  /  /1945Boddam Branch (Great North of Scotland Railway)
Line closed completely. Stations used as railway offices.
  /  /1945Boddam Branch (Great North of Scotland Railway)
Entire line occupied by wagons awaiting repair.
  /  /1947Boddam Branch (Great North of Scotland Railway)
Cruden Bay Hotel demolished between 1947 and 1952. Remains used to build Charles Alexander's house at Bush near Montrose.
31/12/1948Boddam Branch (Great North of Scotland Railway)
Boddam to Ellon (excluded) officially closed.
  /  /1950Boddam Branch (Great North of Scotland Railway)
Track lifted, leaving a portion out from Ellon used to store redundant rolling stock.
  /  /1980Boddam Branch (Great North of Scotland Railway)
Narrow-gauge Port Erroll Narrow Gauge Railway (near the former Cruden Bay station) opened.
  /  /1984Boddam Branch (Great North of Scotland Railway)
Port Erroll Narrow Gauge Railway track moved to the former Banff station site to become the West Buchan Railway.

Locations along the line

These locations are along the line.

The fine station building at Ellon, seen from the 2.15pm Fraserburgh-Aberdeen on Saturday 2nd October 1965, the last day of passenger services on the ...
Brian Haslehust 02/10/1965
The annual Railway Relay Race from Peterhead to Ellon took place on 6th August 2017. This is a minor road crossing and the remains of a bridge ...
Alan Cormack 06/08/2017
I spotted this old railway carriage a few years ago at the road junction of the A90 /A952 a couple of miles north of Ellon. It's on a metal chassis. I ...
Alan Cormack 15/08/2017
I spotted this old railway carriage a few years ago at the road junction of the A90 /A952 a couple of miles north of Ellon. It's on a metal chassis. ...
Alan Cormack 15/08/2017
4 of 21 images. more


This was a single platform station on the south side of the line. There was a goods yard at the east end, served from the east. The station was north of Auchmacoy House.
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Looking north to Auchmacoy station. ...
Ewan Crawford //
1 of 1 images.


Pitlurg was a generously laid out two platform station at a very rural farming location in Aberdeenshire.
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Looking north over the remains of Pitlurg station. A station cottage is on the right and the goods yard was to the left. There was a loop here. There ...
Ewan Crawford 03/02/1997
1 of 1 images.


This was a single platform station on the north side of the line. To the west was the goods yard, approached from the south west.
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The goods shed at the closed Hatton station. View looks west. ...
Ewan Crawford //
1 of 1 images.


This was a very fine two platform station with heavily canopied station buildings on each platform, in keeping with it being associated with a fine railway owned hotel, Cruden Bay Hotel. The hotel and its electric tramway (Cruden Bay Hotel Tramway (Great North of Scotland Railway)) opened in 1899.
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More details

See also
Cruden Bay Hotel Tramway (Great North of Scotland Railway)
This standard, at the former site of Cruden Bay station, once supported the catenary of the Cruden Bay Hotel tramway. It was an unusually attractive ...
David Murray-Smith //1961
A tramway wagon being unearthed at Cruden Bay, circa 1961. ...
David Murray-Smith //1961
The remains of a bridge abutment just to the west of Cruden Bay, at Nethermill.
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Alan Cormack 15/08/2017
The former station masters house at Cruden Bay in November 2006. ...
John Furnevel 06/11/2006
4 of 9 images. more


This was a one platform to the south of the Bullers O' Buchan road bridge, of which a single abutment survives. The platform was on the east side of the line.
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The short lived Bullers O' Buchan Halt (1899-1932), on the Boddam Branch, is in the bottom left hand corner of this 25inch map extract. Presumably it ...
National Library of Scotland //1914
Although the embankment and single bridge abutment alongside the A975 are very visible railway remnants at Bullers O' Buchan, little else remains in ...
Mark Bartlett 27/10/2023
This view of the site of Bullers O' Buchan Halt, on the former Boddam Branch, was taken from alongside 'The Pot', a collapsed sea cave with a natural ...
Mark Bartlett 27/10/2023
A view north towards Boddam from the Bullers O' Buchan carpark, site of the former halt. A former railway cottage sits to the left of the bridge ...
Bruce McCartney 01/06/2018
4 of 6 images. more


This was a single platform station on the north / west side of the line. There was a goods yard to the south of the site, approached from the south west.
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Looking south over the site of Longhaven station. ...
Ewan Crawford //
1 of 1 images.


This was the generously laid out terminus of the line from Ellon. The passenger station was to the west and goods station to its east. The platform was on the east side of a long looped line. The station building was at the north end and a very large two road carriage shed on the east side of the platform at its south end.
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This interesting and much modified former rail vehicle is mounted alongside a street in Boddam, quite close to the bridge to the Buchan Ness ...
Mark Bartlett 27/10/2023
Looking south west over the Boddam station site. ...
Ewan Crawford //
2 of 2 images.