Summary
From 1800 the city of Edinburgh had an increasing appetite for coal; although there were coal pits a few miles away, the roads of the time were inadequate, and the horse-and-cart journey add substantially to the cost to the user. Coal owners with pits in the Dalkeith area got together and formed a railway to carry their coal to the capital.
It was designed for horse-drawn operation, with an Edinburgh terminal, called St Leonards, on the south side of Salisbury Crags. The location was chosen for simplicity of land acquisition, and the coal would in any case need to be distributed in the city; however reaching the location involved a tunnel on a steep gradient, and wagons were hauled up and let down by rope operation controlled by a steam engine.
The line was opened in 1831 from St Leonards to Dalhousie Mains, with a branch line to Fisherrow, a small harbour just to the west of Musselburgh.
A businessman started operating passenger coaches, also horse drawn, from 1832, and this was very successful; the railway company itself later took over the passenger operation.
A branch line to Leith, to give better access to shipping, opened in 1835. The total network amounted to about 12 miles, but many private tramway connections were made in the coal districts to bring the coal to the railway.
Railway technology advanced, and in the 1840s railways using steam locomotives and running longer distances were being planned and built. In 1845 the North British Railway purchased the line, using it as a springboard for its line to Carlisle. They strengthened the track for locomotive operation, and the Edinburgh to Carlisle route became the Waverley Route.
The Edinburgh and Dalkeith line was referred to by a writer as "the Innocent Railway", referring to its unsophisticated horse traction and leisurely ways; the term was understood later to refer to the line's supposed freedom from accident, although this is not historically accurate.
Read more about this topic: Edinburgh And Dalkeith Railway
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