Great North of Scotland Railway
The Great North of Scotland Railway (GNSR) was a British railroad company that existed from 1845 to 1922 . The length of the route network in northeast Scotland was 538 km.
Originally, the GNSR planned to build a double-track line from Aberdeen to Inverness , for which it received parliamentary approval on June 26, 1846. In the end, the track only reached the town of Keith . Two other companies, which later became part of the Highland Railway , completed the route, the Inverness and Nairn Railway and the Inverness and Aberdeen Junction Railway .
Since the GNSR could not achieve its intended goal, it went on to build branch lines in the county of Aberdeenshire . She also took over several smaller railroad companies north and west of Aberdeen, such as the three companies that operated the Deeside Railway from Aberdeen to Ballater . The company also owned hotels in the cities and tourist resorts in its catchment area, including a hotel in Cruden Bay , to which GNSR built a small tram service , the Cruden Bay Hotel Tramway .
With the entry into force of the Railways Act 1921 on January 1, 1923, the GNSR was part of the London and North Eastern Railway (LNER). Even before the Second World War , LNER shut down individual branch lines in the former GNSR network, others followed after the war. Between 1964 and 1968 the Beeching ax finally ended all routes with the exception of the main route from Aberdeen to Keith. Freight traffic continued for a few years on individual routes, on the last route from Keith to Dufftown until 1985. Individual sections are now used by museum railways, including the route to Dufftown by the Keith and Dufftown Railway .
See also
literature
- David Ross: The Great North of Scotland Railway: A New History . Stenlake Publishing, 2015, ISBN 9781840337013
- HA Vallance: Great North of Scotland Railway (History of the Railways of the Scottish Highlands, vol. 3) . David St John Thomas, 1991. ISBN 978-0-946537-60-0 .
