Comments on: Calling at Dundee, Broughty Ferry, Balmossie, Monifieth, Barry Links, Golf Street and Carnoustie

By: Duncan Stephen

Duncan Stephen — Sat, 18 Jul 2009 13:18:18 +0000

Don’t worry about the date – thanks for your comment Will!

By: Will

Will — Sat, 18 Jul 2009 10:09:49 +0000

Aaaand I just noticed the date on your post. Seems I’m a bit late to the party.

By: Will

Will — Sat, 18 Jul 2009 10:09:03 +0000

These small stations were essentially Dundee’s metro / commuter rail system, so they made perfect sense (well, most of them, anyway, maybe not Barry Links) until BR withdrew the service in the early 1990s. Rail travel has become much more popular since then, and I’m sure the stations would be better-used today if, you know, trains actually stopped at them! My parents live in Monifieth, and the only train to Dundee all day is at 6:30am — so are the low passenger numbers really a surprise?

By: Sheila

Sheila — Thu, 07 Jun 2007 09:25:26 +0000

I live in Broughty Ferry and can explain the purpose behind the building of West Ferry station which was a stop no more than 2 minutes away from B/F. The jute barons moved out of Dundee to West Ferry and Broughty Ferry, at one time there were reputed to be more millionaires in a square mile of West Ferry than lived in the heart of London, as their wealth through the production of jute cloth grew and West Ferry station was built specifically for them. It was still a working station when I was a child and in our age of overloaded roads and congestion looking back it seems that it was short sighted to close so many of these ‘ halts’ along this short distance. As I was growing up hundreds of people who worked in Dundee travelled to work by train, sometimes even going home at lunch time and back for the afternoon’s work. It is only during the last 20 years that the London trains have not stopped in Broughty Ferry. Up until then every train travelling between Aberdeen and London made a stop at B/F. Nowadays 1 Edinburgh train stops at Broughty Ferry in the morning and 1 coming back in the afternoon. A great shame. Does that help?

By: Vicky

Vicky — Tue, 29 May 2007 20:08:32 +0000

Weird – I often travel to and from Aberdeen, and apart from a rush-hour stop at Carnoustie, I’ve never seen the train stop at any interim stations!

By: Chris Applegate

Chris Applegate — Tue, 29 May 2007 10:46:22 +0000

Reminds me of the stories of the Epping-Ongar branch of the London Underground’s Central Line, particularly Blake Hall, a station built literally in the middle of nowhere by the GER in the pre-Beeching era, and which only survived because it got taken over by London Underground as part of its expansion works. It only had six passengers a day by the seventies, and yet it still took them years to get it closed…

By: Mark

Mark — Tue, 29 May 2007 09:07:12 +0000

You want to see all of the pishy wee stops on the west side of Edinburgh if you ever get the train to Glasgow Central…….