Once connecting the shoreline of Leith with Edinburgh’s city centre, the South Leith Harbour line was first opened in the 1830s.
The largely forgotten station was key in the expansion and development of Leith and its docks, terminating on the shoreline close to a number of factories. In footage uploaded to YouTube by Echo Delta, we see the South Leith station along with the unused railway lines that once ran through the area.
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The station was once part of the North British Railway, which was intended to connect English railways with Scotland. In constant competition with the Caledonian Railway, North British Railway was known to commit huge sums of money into extensions.
When the Edinburgh, Leith and Newhaven Railway opened in 1842, this extended connections between the suburbs of Leith and Edinburgh’s city centre. The loop was built to bypass the steep Scotland Street tunnel - which was the original connection between Granton and central Edinburgh.
Passengers could travel from Princes Street, round towards Murrayfield before heading through Pilton and on to North Leith.
After the Forth Bridge opened in 1890, the line was used only for local passenger trains and goods traffic. While it’s hard to imagine now, Edinburgh was once tied together by more than fifty railway stations.
The South Leith Station was closed to passengers in 1903, though continued to transport goods.
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After the First World War, many of Edinburgh’s local stations began to close. With the tramways electrified, competition assumed new levels and reduced the riders on suburban rail lines.
After nationalisation of the UK’s railways in the late 1940s, any stations and lines that were deemed excessive vanished from the network. Edinburgh lost much of its local services, with many of the old stations since transformed into private housing or other functions.
Areas such as Abbeyhill, Gorgie and Dalry, and Corstorphine all had their own station and connection through the city. While several of the old lines are still active, it's rare to see a train make its way down one.
As we see in the footage uploaded by Echo Delta, the South Leith station remains connected to the East Coast Main Line through Portobello - which runs through England to London King’s Cross. The line does remain open, and is checked by Network Rail.
The former Leith North station, which was one of the remaining structures from the original line, is now occupied by the Citadel Youth Centre.
