Westcraigs

Location type

Station

Name and dates

Westcraigs (1862-1956)

Opened on the New Monkland Line (Monkland Railways).

Description

This was a two platform station immediately east of Westcraigs Junction. There was a goods yard to the south, approached from the west, with a double height loading bank

The main station building, a brick building in North British Railway style, was on the westbound platform, with a waiting room to its west. A timber waiting room was on the eastbound platform and a water tank to its east. A station cottage was to the south.

When the North British Railway took over the Edinburgh and Glasgow Railway in 1865 there was no water tank here - locomotives had to use the Shotts branch. This was solved by running a waterpipe beside the branch downhill to Westcraigs, which supplied the watertank.

The station was a mile west of Woodend Junction and its yards. This served Westrigg Colliery Pits Nos 2 and 3 and Woodend Colliery.

The line was closed completely in 1982. The platforms, station house and loading bank remained intact.

Around 1988 the route was converted into a footpath, which destroyed (or buried) the eastbound platform.

Work began in 2009 to reinstate the line. A new station would not be opened here, but further east Blackridge was opened by Woodend Junction in 2011. Of the older station the station house survives and the name Station Road.

The station was named for Westcraigs Hill and Westcraigs Farm (to the north) and the village of Westcraigs and Westcraigs Quarry (to the south). Blackridge is to the north, once just a farm its name now dominates.

Tags

Station

External links

Canmore site record
NLS Collection OS map of 1892-1914
NLS Collection OS map of 1944-67
NLS Map
NLS Map
NLS Map
NLS Map
NLS Map
NLS Map




Chronology Dates

  /08/1860Shotts Branch (Monkland Railways)
Act for branch from the New Monkland Line (Monkland Railways) at Westcraigs to Shotts Goods passed.
05/02/1862Shotts Branch (Monkland Railways)
Westcraigs to Shotts Goods opened. Used by the Shotts Iron Works to export pig iron via Leith docks.
11/08/1862New Monkland Line (Monkland Railways) Torbanehill and Bathgate Branch (Monkland Railways)
Opened to passenger trains. Stations at Airdrie South, Clarkston [NBR], Caldercruix, Forrestfield and Westcraigs on the new line. New station further east on the Torbanehill line at Armadale.
  /  /1864Shotts Branch (Monkland Railways)
Branch opened from the Westcraigs to Shotts Goods line to West Benhar Colliery.

Books


Vanished Railways of West Lothian