Portlethen Station opened in 1849, hot on the heels of railway mania. It was a time when practically anyone who had access to money and land could build a railway line.
But little over 100 years later, the decline in the fish trade saw passenger numbers slide to single figures, and British Railways beat Dr Beeching in closing it.
Nobody could have predicted that 15 years later the Portlethen population would explode with the discovery of oil.
With only single-carriageway roads to Aberdeen and poor infrastructure, a station was exactly what the commuter community wanted.
This is the story of the opening, closing and reopening of Portlethen Station…
Portlethen Station opened after wave of ‘railway mania’ in 1849
Between 1847 and 1850, the Aberdeen Railway Company quickly established a route from Aberdeen to Forfar and Arbroath, which opened in stages.
Aberdeen’s temporary terminus was Ferryhill Station nearer the edge of the city; carrying the line into the city centre proved too tricky at the time.
It was another few years before Aberdeen Joint Station opened in 1867.
The geography of the rugged east coast proved difficult for railway navvies, with large areas of rock cutting required at Muchalls.
But the initial line from Stonehaven made good progress in 1849, and reduced the travel time from the coastal town to Glasgow to ‘only’ 6 hours and 15 minutes.
A journey from Stonehaven to London was down to 21 hours, which although still lengthy was far quicker than horse and carriage.
Farm animals were as likely to frequent station as people
When Portlethen Station opened on December 13 1849, it was initially for goods and cattle.
Given many people in the region had never seen a train before in their lives, it’s fair to say the cattle were petrified, with reports of some jumping to their deaths from wagons in sheer terror.
Early in 1850, the station began to welcome passengers of the human variety.
Brechin Station manager Mr Anderson was appointed first manager of Portlethen Station, a move said to be “deeply regretted” by the Brechin community.
But work on the remaining six miles to Ferryhill stalled due to 6,000 cubic yards of rock excavation outstanding, as well as financial difficulties.
Apart from a fish train derailment in 1923, little of note happened at Portlethen Station.
It was very much a country station, as likely to frequented by animals as people.
The community was still small and scattered, there were no commuters, and little else going on at the station.
Portlethen Station was to close in biggest shake-up since WW2
When British Railways (BR) announced a station closure policy in May 1955, it was perhaps no surprise Portlethen Station was on the list.
It was the most drastic railway reorganisation since the end of the war.
Portlethen was identified for closure alongside Marykirk, Fordoun, Drumlithie, Carmont, Newtonhill and Cove Bay stations.
Mr Hollingsworth, BR’s chief commercial manager for Scotland, said some of the stations handled as few as seven or eight passengers a day, and that people preferred buses.
He said withdrawing small stations would give BR “breathing space” to improve the express service between Aberdeen and Glasgow.
This was still the age of steam, diesel was in its infancy, and the price of coal made running railways very costly.
It could not be denied that passengers numbers were low, but locals said “diesel experiments that have been initiated in other parts of the country gave them heart”.
But nothing would happen quickly enough to make Portlethen Station pay.
Fishing trade kept branch line busy
It was acknowledged in Kincardineshire there was little traffic at any of the stations, with the exception of Newtonhill.
But it had not always been that way, the Aberdeen-Stonehaven branch line was once essential for fisherfolk.
In 1956, former Stonehaven stationmaster George Edwards, then aged 80, recalled how extra clerks had to be employed during the prosperous herring fishing season.
Mr Edwards recalled how fisherwives from Newtonhill, Portlethen and Cove Bay took line-caught fish to the New Market in Aberdeen in such quantities that a special van had to be attached to the morning train.
Holiday periods also kept the branch line busy, with special shuttles running every half hour until 11pm when the “boozer” departed “after much shouting, shoving and whistle-blowing”.
But by the 1950s those days were firmly in the past.
With plans for a large housing development at Portlethen, some wondered if the closure might be shortsighted.
Newtonhill resident Mr Palmer branded the proposals as “a ferocious dictatorial action”.
British Railways closed Portlethen to passengers in summer of 1956
But on June 10 1956, the last passenger service departed Portlethen, and the station was consigned to parcels and goods only.
Within two decades there were already calls to reopen it to meet commuter needs.
By the mid-70s Portlethen had grown beyond recognition, and the only way to reach Aberdeen was by bus or car on a single-carriageway road.
Rampant housebuilding continued and still trains rumbled past the old halt.
Norman Wright, branch chairman of train drivers’ union ASLEF, was confident a two-way service between Inverurie and Stonehaven could be profitable.
He suggested reopening stations at Dyce, Kintore, Cove Bay, Newtonhill and Portlethen.
Mr Wright pointed out each of these satellite towns had ever-increasing populations which would guarantee a substantial patronage of the railways.
But it would be another 10 years before BR recognised the potential of commuters and reopened Dyce station in 1984.
Portlethen was put back on the railway map in 1985
And the same year, BR floated the idea of possibly reopening Portlethen Station.
All 1,200 homes in the village were sent a questionnaire advising them of a proposed 12-trains-a-day commuter service.
And fewer than 12 months later, after an absence of 30 years, passengers were once again standing on the windswept platforms of Portlethen Station.
The wheel had come full circle, Portlethen was back on the railway map.
British Rail, as it was renamed, brought one of their most up-to-date trains, a class 47 diesel, to Portlethen for the station opening.
Among the first passengers on the round-trip to Aberdeen were Portlethen Primary pupils who had carried out a history project to celebrate the reopening.
But conversation was very much about the future and whether ScotRail Aberdeen manager John Gough would be justified in pushing to get the village “back on the rails”.
Certainly commuters in Kintore and Newtonhill were watching with a keen eye to see if they might be next in getting back on track.
It would be another 35 years before Kintore station reopened, and potential passengers in Newtonhill are still watching and waiting.
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