Talk:Penicuik Railway

Bonnyrigg photograph
From the latitude and longitude, the photograph of Bonnyrigg station in this article is the Bonnyrigg on the Peebles Railway, not the one on the Penicuik Railway. If someone could check that it would help, but otherwise I'll remove this in a few days time. If this is an error, it does nothing for the authority of Wikipedia articles. Afterbrunel (talk) 10:18, 3 August 2015 (UTC)

Mauricewood
The article contains this assertion: "Iron and coal was mined by the Shotts Iron Company at the Mauricewood pit near Penicuik making transportation of these minerals to Morningside in Lanarkshire one of the principal uses of the line." attributed to Thomas page 48.

and

"The Mauricewood Colliery disaster of 1886 led to the pit's closure, which was a major loss to the line."

These statements are problematical, and are not a fair representation of what Thomas says. I believe the following to be the position, but if anyone has contrary information that can be verified, please indicate it.

When the Penicuik Railway was proposed, serving the Greenlaw pit (among many others) was an objective, but the Edinburgh Loanhead and Roslin Railway got there first. There was a tramway from the pit head to Glencorse station on the ELRR, and the ELRR lay between the pit and the Penicuik line. Later (after the line was constructed) the Mauricewood pit was opened. This was another shaft of the same workings, a little further west, and again a tramway was built down the hillside to the extension of the Glencorse (ELRL) line.

As far as I can see the Shotts Iron Company and Mauricewood never directly or indirectly connected to the Penicuik line (even though that was originally an aspiration). Accordingly "transportation of these minerals to Morningside" was never a "principal use of the line" and the 1886 disaster therefore was not "a major loss to the Penicuik line". Afterbrunel (talk) 13:09, 13 August 2015 (UTC)


 * I've edited this out now. Afterbrunel (talk) 17:00, 13 August 2015 (UTC)