X-Nico

unusual facts about North British Railway


Kielder Viaduct

Kielder Viaduct consists of seven semi-circular masonry skew arches and was built in 1862 to carry the North British Railway across marshy land, which following flooding to create Kielder Water, became the place where Deadwater Burn joins Bakethin Reservoir.


Anniesland railway station

Opened by the North British Railway in 1874 on their route linking the Glasgow, Dumbarton and Helensburgh Railway at Maryhill to Queens Dock (the site that is now occupied by the Scottish Exhibition Centre) on the north side of the River Clyde (the Stobcross Railway), it became part of the London and North Eastern Railway during the Grouping of 1923.

Cowlairs railway works

Cowlairs Locomotive, Carriage and Wagon Works , at Cowlairs in Springburn, an area in the north-east of Glasgow, Scotland, was built in 1841 for the Edinburgh and Glasgow Railway and was taken over by the North British Railway (NBR) in 1865.

Cross Country services

The service was maintained by adding or removing the through coaches from trains already running on the routes: one coach of North British Railway stock, was added to an Aberdeen-London express, and was detached from it at York, where the train was made up with the addition of more coaches and sleeping cars to complete the journey.

Dalgety Bay railway station

The station is built close to the former station Donibristle Halt, opened in 1890 (closed 1959) as part of the Aberdour Line by the North British Railway, and named for the Earl of Moray's estate of Donibristle on which it stood.

Edinburgh Suburban and Southside Junction Railway

"Six miles 1507 yards, approximately, from a junction with the N.B.R. (E & G Section) at…the bridge carrying the Caledonian Railway Granton and Leith branches over the N.B. at Haymarket, and terminating at a junction with the N.B.R. some 200 yards south east of... Portobello Station".

North Britain

The North British Railway operated from 1846 to 1923, leaving a later legacy in the name of the North British Hotel in Edinburgh, which was renamed ‘The Balmoral Hotel’ in the 1980s.

PS Jeanie Deans

She took the name of an earlier fleet member, continuing the tradition of the North British Railway naming their vessels after characters from Sir Walter Scott's novels.

Wemyss Private Railway

The North British Railway owned and operated a railway to transport coal from the many mines in Fife to the docks on the Forth estuary.


see also

North Clyde Line

At the time of the Grouping in 1923, the North British Railway became part of the London and North Eastern Railway (LNER), while the Caledonian Railway became part of the London, Midland and Scottish Railway (LMS).