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Rambling old railways

Dolphinton was once served by two railways: the Caledonian Railway arrived in March 1867 with a branch from Symington on their main line from Glasgow to Carlisle, but the North British Railway's branch from Leadburn, on the Edinburgh - Peebles line, had opened 2¾ years earlier. The two companies' staffs presumably glared at one another from their respective stations on opposite sides of the main road! No trains ever ran from one branch to the other, though there was a single siding permitting the occasional exchange of a goods wagon. The village and the surrounding countryside were insufficiently populated to keep either branch open in the harsher financial realities of the twentieth century and passenger trains were withdrawn in 1945 from the Caledonian (by then LMS) branch and in 1933 from the North British (by the LNER) branch. Delineated by a modern fence, the low embankment of the latter can still be seen curving across a field of active moles just east of the station site, which was behind the trees on the right. In the distance rises the appropriately named Black Mount.