Location type

Junction

Name and dates

Fouldubs Junction (1908-)

Opened on the Grangemouth Railway (Forth and Clyde Canal).

Description

This junction is located on the western edge of Grangemouth. Today it is the junction between various freight lines and the double track railway to Grangemouth Junction. It is controlled by a large signal box on the north side of the line. This box is unusual in Scotland now, for being the only box located on a goods network. From here sidings serve the TDG depot, WH Malcolm depot, Grangemouth Refinery and docks.

The Grangemouth railway opened in 1860 as a single track railway. It was doubled and came to serve an increasing number of docks such as Carron Dock (1883) and Grange Dock (1906).

A yard (Fouldubs Junction Yard) was laid out between Fouldubs and Grangemouth South Signal Box around 1896, a loop on the north side of the line leading to dead end sidings at either end. The first Fouldubs Junction box was opened on the north side of the line and east of the Beancross Road overbridge. Fouldubs Farm was to the south east. This yard assisted with the large number of new sidings which had opened for the Carron dock.

A new even larger dock, Grange Dock, was planned. A secondary line was to be built to Grangemouth, the yards enlarged, the line between Fouldubs and Grangemouth quadrupled, a new locomotive shed opened and considerable yards laid out at the Grange Dock.

Grangemouth Shed opened in 1907. The Bainsford Branch (Caledonian Railway) opened in 1908, connecting with the North British Railway at its west end and continuing on to Swing Bridge Junction. A new box opened on the north side of Fouldubs Junction, just west of the Beancross Road overbridge. The junction included a diamond formation allowing cross over from the original pair of double lines to the new double lines laid to their north. The quadruple line ran north east to Grangemouth No 1 Signal Box and Grangemouth No 2 Signal Box. Fouldubs Junction Yard was expanded with further marshalling sidings on both sides and additional sidings to serve timber yards, Abergrane Saw Mills to the south and chemical works to the north.

The Bainsford line was singled as far as Orchardhall in 1968 and closed beyond. Grangemouth No 1 Signal Box closed in 1969 and the yards cut back. The Bainsford line closed in 1991.

Today the double track runs north east as two separate single track lines, the northern for the docks and the southern to the refinery. To the north of this at the junction a looped headshunt remains (the last of the additional two lines laid from Fouldubs to Grangemouth) from which a TDG depot (formerly concrete depot, formerly saw mill) can be reached and a WH Malcolm depot built on the site of the Grangemouth Shed.

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