Campaign

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

Reply

1.

John Wilson

Slateford, Edinburgh

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Thank you to John Wilson who wrote, commenting that this article was now out of date, and adding: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

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

Reply

2.

David King

Trinity, Edinburgh

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

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