Edinburgh and Dalkeith Railway - Passengers

Passengers

Passengers had hardly been considered when the railway was being planned, but a businessman, Michael Fox (who had been dynamic in managing coal deliveries in the city) put "an old stagecoach on the line and on 2 June 1832 began a service of three return trips a day between St Leonards and the North Esk depot". In the first full month of operation, 14,392 passenger journeys were recorded, and in the second, 20,615, making 150,000 in the first year of operation for a revenue of £4,000.

There were no intermediate stations, and passengers joined and alighted from the coaches when they wished.

In 1834 the E&DR obtained powers to run its own passenger service and it took over Fox's operation in 1836. Still using horse traction, this was a busier passenger operation than the Liverpool and Manchester Railway.

"In addition to timetable trains, private coaches could be hired from any station to any station at any hour of the day or night."

By the years 1842 – 1844 the railway carried 807,779 passengers on the main line and 207,625 passengers on the Leith branch, amounting to just over 50% of total receipts on the line.

When the E&DR provided passenger services itself, "The vehicles provided were in the stage-coach tradition, built by the company itself at a high cost of £170 each. They had open seats at front and rear.

Bremner, writing in 1869 and referring to the time before 1845, says:

have pleasant recollections of holiday trips made over the line. Then, as now, people took advantage of the Fast Days to spend a few hours outside the city, and it was no uncommon thing for the Dalkeith Railway to bear away four or five thousand pleasure-seekers on such occasions. The Musselburgh Races were also a fruitful source of revenue for the line. The passenger coaches were a sort of hybrid between the old-fashioned stage-coach and the modern omnibus, and in summer the outside seats were the most popular.