Location type

Name and dates

Description

This was the junction between the Wilsontown, Morningside and Coltness Railway of 1845 and the 1859 branch to the north of the Edinburgh and Glasgow Railway to the Shotts Loops, serving the Shotts Iron Works. Access to the branch was from west. Named for Blackhall Farm to the west.

On the 1860 Ordnance Survey map the junction is shown to have a passing loop on its south side, not serving the branch, the branch on the north side with a short loop on the main line running off the branch to rejoin the main line just to the east. A timber station building is shown on the south side of the junction labelled 'Blackhall Station' and a stone railway cottage is to the east, south of the line. There was a siding to the west, on the south side of the line, served from the east. Its purpose is not immediately obvious, it map have been a passing place or a reversing spur for Shotts trains running east.

Blackhall station opened here in 1864.

In 1893 the station closed and a signal box opened to the south of the junction. The 1898 OS map shows a new layout. There were loops on either side of the main line, each end of the loops finishing with sidings. The branch left from the northern loop and had its own loop on its first section. The railway cottages remained to the east.

By 1912 further sidings had been added on the south side of the line and a very short loop immediately west of the branch's junction on the north side loop. The branch now had loops on either side north of the junction. The layout remained relatively unchanged in 1946.

The box closed in 1950 with abandonment of the Shotts branch, and route east to Fauldhouse and Crofthead closed around 1952.

Nothing remains, the area was opencast mined in the 1980s and 90s.

Tags

External links