Old Railway Lines Transcript | Journeys Through Edinburgh

Ride some of North Edinburgh’s cycle paths with me.

We’re starting at the Hawthornvale path, which runs from Lindsay Road in North Leith to Five Way, and I’ll go into more detail on Five Ways when we get there. I’m cycling this path westbound today.

There were two competing rail companies building railways to Leith in the 19th century — North British, and Caledonian. In the 1940s, they both became British Rail services after nationalisation, and all of Leith’s passenger rail provision was gone by the end of the 60s.

So, the Hawthornvale path used to be the route of the Caledonian railway on the Leith North branch. This took freight to the docks and passengers to the Leith North terminus, which is now a block of flats on the corner of Ocean Drive just before Ocean Terminal. The passenger line took you from Princes Street Station (which is now the Caledonian Hotel on the corner of Lothian Road) all the way to Leith, by way of Murrayfield, Craigleith, Granton Road and Newhaven. We’ll see a couple of those stations — or at least, what’s left of them — today.

On the left here you can see an old platform, and this is from the former Newhaven station, the building you can see up on the road ahead. This was the penultimate stop on the line to Leith North and it’s nice to see that some of the station infrastructure is still here today.

We’re just about to get to Five Ways, which is the junction where five different paths radiate out from. And of course, this was an important railway junction too back in the day. It was known as Trinity Junction for the North British lines, and Newhaven Junction for the Caledonian. The Caledonian line passed over its rival by bridge.

As you can see I’ve jumped all the way to Crewe Toll to ride the Ferry Road path back east to Five Ways. This was also part of the Caledonian’s Leith North branch. It runs pretty much parallel to Ferry Road.

As we go underneath Granton Road, we pass through Granton Road station. And unusually for a former railway path, we’re cycling on the westbound platform of the old station rather than the trackbed, and the trackbed itself is in a bit of a ditch to my left.

This is the Trinity Path, which I am riding south from Trinity Road down to – you guessed it, Five Ways. This was once part of the Granton branch of the Edinburgh, Leith and Granton railway, operated by North British.

Coming up on the left you can see the old Trinity station, which is now someone’s house! (Lucky.) And on the right there is a platform, which is a bit overgrown as you can see. Trinity was the penultimate stop on the line to Granton, but the station was sadly closed in 1925 to passengers.

This is Trinity Tunnel, which passes under East Trinity Road.

I’m now on the Chancelot path, which runs south from Five Ways to the Water of Leith. It was part of the North British Easter Road Deviation, and this deviation was built in 1868 to avoid the steep Scotland Street tunnel and it stopped at stations including Abbeyhill, Easter Road, Leith Walk and Powderhall. After Powderhall the line went either north to Trinity or veered east towards Leith Citadel. South of Powderhall, the line remained open mainly for the waste transfer station at Powderhall, which stopped operations in 2016.

This is still the disused Easter Road Deviation line, but as you can see it hasn’t really been maintained or made into a path in the same way as the other ones I’ve cycled on today. It does go straight for some time but it veers to the left eventually, deviating from the old trackbed, and eventually meets the Water of Leith Walkway.

I’m on the Goldenacre path now, southbound towards Warriston Junction. This was part of the North British Edinburgh, Leith and Granton railway. This portion of the line was the original route from the old Canal Street station to Leith and Granton through the Scotland Street tunnel. When the Easter Road Deviation was opened, this route closed to passengers up until Trinity Junction.

Warriston Junction is where this path meets the Warriston path, and that is where we’re going next.

I’m starting at the Broughton Tesco, and behind me is the Rodney Street tunnel, which would’ve once brought trains from Canal Street station through Scotland Street tunnel to here. And, the Warriston path starts here, and it takes a bit of an interesting route that we’ll see.

Turning left here would take me back onto the Goldenacre path up to Five Ways, but I’m gonna go straight on. This junction is where trains from Canal Street station would’ve turned towards Leith, before the Easter Road Deviation opened.

So this is where the Warriston path joins the Water of Leith path. It is still the same railway line, but the Water of Leith path is part of a larger walking route that spans the whole length of the river. Here, it kind of doubles up with the old railway line.

Platforms on either side of the path can only mean one thing — another station. This was Bonnington station, and steps to street level are still in use today on my left. The platform on the right is really long, as you can see. We can’t see the station buildings up on Newhaven Road, but it is now a residential property and it won Scotland’s Home of the Year 2023.

The path joins up with the Water of Leith itself, and you can see it to my right here.

At the Great Junction Street bridge, there was a station called, well, Junction Bridge. Since space was limited by the river, there was only one platform instead of two.

This was the penultimate station on this route, and just after the bridge there was a tunnel on the left at Coburg Street that took trains to their Leith Citadel terminus. Nothing exists of this tunnel anymore sadly, and there’s no more railway line to cycle, so this ends our bike ride. And, thank you for joining me and I hope you have learned something on this very sunny and warm day!