The Fife Coast Railway was a railway line running round the southern and eastern part of the county of Fife, in Scotland. It was built in stages by four railway companies:
the Leven Railway opened the section from a junction at Thornton on the Edinburgh and Northern Railway main line to Leven in 1854, serving textile mills and a distillery. In 1857 the company extended eastwards to Kilconquhar; the East of Fife Railway built the line from Leven to Kilconquhar, opening in 1857; the Leven and East of Fife Railway was created in 1861 by an amalgamation of the first two companies. It opened the line to Anstruther in 1863; finally the Anstruther and St Andrews Railway completed the line from Anstruther to St Andrews in 1887.
St Andrews itself had already been reached from Leuchars in 1852 by The St. Andrews Railway.
As well as the textile industries, the line served fishing and agriculture, and an important passenger traffic built up. The lines had been engineered by Thomas Bouch and some difficulties were experienced with inadequately specified technical equipment.
Coal exports assumed a huge importance in the last decades of the nineteenth century, and harbours at Leven and Methil were extended considerably.
The line thrived up until 1939, but road transport took its toll on both passenger and freight business, and the importance of coal declined, and the line closed to passengers in 1965 and to goods traffic in 1966.
History
First railways Following the success of the Edinburgh and Glasgow Railway, Scotland's first trunk railway, which opened in 1842, promoters started to think of ambitious schemes for other Scottish lines. The easy availability of money as the economy improved resulted in a frenzy of railway promotion and the 1845 Parliamentary session saw a huge number of authorisations. Among them was the Edinburgh and Northern Railway, which was planned to link Edinburgh and Dundee, with an arm to Perth. Bridging the Firths of Forth and Tay was not technologically feasible and ferry crossings at both ends were to be part of the journey, for passengers and for goods.
The Edinburgh and Northern soon changed its name to the Edinburgh, Perth and Dundee Railway and it opened its lines progressively in 1847–1848. The route ran through Kirkcaldy, Markinch and Ladybank, forking there for Ferryport-on-Craig via Leuchars, and Perth.
The original prospectus for the line had included a branch line from Leuchars to St Andrews, but this was dropped from the scheme as actually authorised, and it fell to local people in St Andrews to build their own branch line from Leuchars. They did so, and the St Andrews Railway opened in 1852.
Immediately following the authorisation of the Edinburgh and Northern Railway in 1845, a prospectus was issued for an East of Fife Railway. It would either leave the E&NR at Thornton and follow the valley of the River Leven, or leave it at Markinch and follow the valley of the River Orr (often spelt "Ore"). Either way, the line would pass through Cameron Bridge and run close to the coast as far as Anstruther, a distance of about twenty miles. The easy topography of the area was such that the line would be "free from tunnelling or embanking".East of Fife Railway prospectus dated 25 August 1845, quoted in Hajducki, Leven and East of Fife
The capital of the company was to be £250,000, a huge amount for a simple branch line. Supported by prominent local persons, the scheme obtained its authorising act of Parliament, (9 & 10 Vict. c. cxc) on 16 July 1846, adopting the Markinch junction route. In 1844 and 1845 money for railway schemes had been easy to come by; now in 1846 the slump had set in and it was impossible to get subscriptions; nonetheless in 1847 the company obtained a further act, the (10 & 11 Vict. c. ccxxiv), modifying the route, but soon reality struck home, and in 1850 the company was dissolved by the (13 & 14 Vict. c. xcvii).
The Leven Railway Authorisation In 1847 the Edinburgh and Northern Railway, now retitled the Edinburgh, Perth and Dundee Railway, had opened part of its main line, with a station at Markinch. In 1848 a station at Thornton was opened. This emphasised to the people of Leven the loss of the railway connection that the East of Fife had promised.
In October 1851 a prospectus for the Leven Railway Company was issued. A less ambitious scheme was contemplated, running six miles from Thornton to Leven as a single track line; by avoiding the purchase of rolling stock (by contracting with the EP&DR to work the line) the capital cost of the project could be kept to £25,000.Leven Railway Company prospectus of October 1851, quoted in Hajducki, Leven and East of Fife
As the scheme took shape, Thomas Bouch was appointed as engineer to the company. He pursued a policy of building low cost branch lines, arguing that the heavy expense of over-engineered railways crippled their profitability from the outset. The board of directors had no previous railway experience and at first they followed Bouch's recommendations implicitly.
The company would have capital of £23,000 and the line would run from Thornton to Burnmill, on the north-west margin of Leven, with branches to Kirkland Mill and to Leven Harbour. Burn Mill was a flour mill at that edge of Leven; the location was apparently chosen to enable later extension to Anstruther. Kirkland Mill was a large textile mill south of the river Leven a mile west of Leven itself. There was a large distillery and textile mill at Cameron Bridge, and numerous mills at Leven, where the terminal was some way north-west of the town; the attraction was the flour mill named Burn Mill. (The line was later extended south to the harbour.)
A bill went to Parliament, and notwithstanding fierce opposition from a local landowner, C. Maitland Christie, the (15 & 16 Vict. c. xcv) received royal assent on 17 June 1852.
The working arrangement with the EP&DR was revisited; it was to split any surplus income equally between the two companies, but the Leven Railway had to provide a locomotive.
Construction In August land acquisition was high on the agenda, and the contractor went to Thornton to make the junction with the EP&DR there. This caused an immediate problem, for the Leven Railway had agreed that the EP&DR would be able to approve the plans for the junction in advance. It emerged that Bouch should have arranged this and had failed to do so; moreover despite urgent requests he had still not produced the plans in October.
During the construction there was exceptional hostility from landowners; the land was fertile and although in most cases payment had been made to acquire the land, handing over the land shortly before harvest time was against the owners' nature and many obstacles were put in the way of the railway.
The EP&DR was in serious financial difficulty as the Leven Railway took shape, and approached the Leven Company with a proposition: instead of the Leven Company providing a locomotive, they could give the money for it to the EP&DR, who would work the line with one of its own engines. This was obviously some kind of trick, and the Leven Company declined. The EP&DR took huge offence and tried to coerce the Leven Company, but Bouch obtained a Hawthorn 0-4-0 tender locomotive, Leven no. 1, and the EP&DR was obliged to comply with the agreement.
Captain Tyler of the Board of Trade inspected the line in early June; the Company was confident that the line would pass, but Tyler found a great number of shortcomings, and the anticipated opening had to be deferred. On 2 August 1854 he visited again and this time he approved it. There was a Directors' special run on the line on 5 August 1854, and it opened to the public on 10 August 1854. There were four passenger trains each way daily, connecting with main line trains at Thornton. The stations at Cameron Bridge and Leven were rudimentary, and the authorised branches to Kirkland and Leven Harbour were not yet started.Hajducki et al give 10 August 1854; Bruce gives 10 August 1854 as a "Gala Opening" (page 85); but on page 233 he says 3 July 1854; Quick, and Carter page 147, Thomas (NBR volume 1, page 166) and Thomas and Turnock, page 312, give the opening as 3 July 1854; but this was the date for which the Company first gave notice of intended opening to the Board of Trade; Hajducki et al explain the delay and persuasively give 10 August 1854 and explain why; pages 35 to 38. There was a "formal" opening for the Directors and dignitaries on 5 August (page 37, second paragraph) and the public opening on 10 August 1854 (page 39, second paragraph; actually a quotation of a Company announcement that the opening would take place on that day, but not challenged or modified by Hajducki. Hajducki then muddies the waters by quoting 7 August 1854 in the chronology on pages 313 and 314. Butt quotes 7 August 1854 but ascribes the opening to the Edinburgh, Perth and Dundee Railway. Corstorphine quotes 5 August, referring to the Directors' special run.
First years of operation There was soon serious difficulty with the locomotive in negotiating the curves, which appear to have been very sharp. At first the EP&DR declined to work the line with the locomotive, but agreed to do so at reduced speed while the Leven Company obtained a better locomotive. Bouch blamed all this on the locomotive, but when Bouch could not be contacted for some time, the Directors called in an independent engineer, Robert Nicholson, locomotive engineer of the EP&DR, to advise them. He found that there had been nothing wrong with the Hawthorn engine, but that Bouch's setting out of the line of route and the curves in the track were substantially at variance with the approved plans, and that the track was "substandard throughout". He was sent south to procure one from the Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway, which he did: a second-hand Bury 2-2-0. Leven no. 1 was sold to the Caledonian Railway.
The EP&DR continued to harbour hostile feelings towards the Leven Railway, and when a dispute over the terms of the working agreement could not be resolved, they gave notice that they would cease to work the line from 31 July 1854: about two weeks' notice. The Leven Railway had already overspent its authorised capital and could not simply acquire rolling stock and other plant as well as a replacement for the failing Bury locomotive. At the eleventh hour, General Lindsay of Balcarres funded the procurement of the necessary rolling stock, which was acquired remarkably quickly (from the Scottish Central Railway), and the line continued to run after the withdrawal of the EP&DR.
The traffic was very buoyant, almost double what had been foreseen, and having an efficient locomotive was essential. Unfortunately the Bury locomotive was also defective, and although it could hardly cope with the traffic, the Leven Company had to make the best of it while a new Hawthorn locomotive was built. The goods wagons also were extremely poor. The new locomotive arrived in October 1855 and immediately on arrival it too was found to be unready for work. It is not clear whether Bouch, as the Engineer of the line, was responsible for locomotive matters; but the Directors now found many deficiencies with the line itself, and wrote to Bouch in such strong terms that the letter was in effect dismissal.
In 1856 the finances of the company were buoyant; in the half year to 28 April 1856 the surplus was £1,204, nearly double that under the EP&DR working arrangement. In 1860 and 1861 the company was able to declare dividends of 8%.
Some time prior to 23 April 1858 the quarter-mile spur to the Kirkland Works, authorised in the original act of Parliament, was opened.Thomas and Turnock summarise this sequence, but erroneously refer to the Leven Railway as the West Fife Railway on pages 76 to 79. There was an unconnected West Fife Mineral Railway. The Leven Railway is correctly named in the index.