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Railways
Portobello Station |
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Campaign |
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Portobello Station
Members of the Capital Rail Action Group are
campaigning for a new station at Portobello, where services on the North
Berwick and Edinburgh Crossrail lines would stop. The journey to
Waverley Station would take about five minutes.
The old
station at Portobello closed following publication of the Beeching Report
in 1963. All that remains now is the Station Master's house at
the top of Station Brae, off Brighton Place. would stop.
Following a
motion put forward by local councillor Maureen Child, the City of
Edinburgh council is preparing a report to go before their transport and
environment committee at the end of July.
Edinburgh Evening News: June 23, 2009, P.19 |
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Reply
1.
John Wilson
Slateford, Edinburgh |
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Portobello Station
Thank you to John Wilson who wrote, commenting
that this article was now out of date, and adding:
"Is the station house not at the foot of
Station Brae?"
John Wilson, Slateford, Edinburgh:
May 7, 2007 |
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Updates Required
Yes, I think this page would probably benefit
from being updated. So far as I know, there are currently no plans
for a station anywhere at Portobello.
I currently have a large volume of current and
recent news about Edinburgh transport, including many comments on the
trams, waiting to be added to the EdinPhoto web site, but in view of the
number of emails currently arriving, I don't think there is much prospect
of adding the transport info to the web site in the near future.
Peter Stubbs, Edinburgh: May 8, 2012
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Reply
2.
David King
Trinity, Edinburgh |
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Thank you to David King for giving me more
background information about the proposal, five years ago, to build a new
station at Portobello.
David wrote
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A New Portobello Station?
"When
Portobello Station closed there were four tracks at that point, only two
of which were served by the island platform – the other two were ‘fast’
lines for trains that did not stop there, mainly longer-distance services.
These resolved themselves into two double tracks (East Coast route and
Waverley route / Suburban) at Portobello East Junction, underneath the
Hope Lane footbridge.
The junction was controlled by a signal box
that, unusually, spanned the tracks. The four tracks were reduced to two
when the line was re-aligned, about 1970 or so, I think, to remove the
sharp curve that formerly took it round Portobello Marshalling Yard – it
previously ran close to the fence behind the golf clubhouse. This allowed
the easing of a speed restriction.
I think the possibility of providing a new
Portobello station was looked at when the line to Brunstane and
Newcraighall was re-opened to passengers but there was a ‘capacity issue’,
i.e. having trains stopping there meant that they would be on that section
of track for longer, and therefore fewer trains than were timetabled could
be accommodated.
Building a new station would mean at least one
new track, and probably require
the fairly recently built wheel lathe to be re-located. So I think
the cost ruled out a station."
David King, Trinity, Edinburgh: May
9, 2012
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