Three towns to Kilmarnock

[Hughie]

3 May 1899
TRAIN KILLS HORSE
While the 6 am train from Ardrossan to Kilmarnock was passing Springside Station on Wednesday

The above is from our topic 'Ardrossan - this day in History'. There is also mention of an Ardrossan to Kilmarnock rail service in 1962, that's in the pictorial book 'Ayrshire & Renfrewshire's Lost Railways' by Gordon Stanfield.

I have to say, I never knew such a service existed while I was growing up in Ardrossan. I thought we only had the A1 and SMT buses at that time between the three towns and Kilmarnock - anyone recall using this service? The 1962 service apparently used a Park Royal Railbus from Ardrossan North.

[Penny Tray]

Hughie,

A group of us from the Amateur Swimming Club at the 'Pool' used it in the winter months to go to Kilmarnock Baths. I think it was recommended by a boy, Bryden McGuinness, whose father maybe worked for British railways.

My recollection is that it was green coloured and seated around twenty.

You'll recall that the buses in those days, brilliant service as it was, did the old Ardrossan, Saltcoats, Stevenston, Kilwinning, Irvine, Dreghorn, Springside, Crosshouse, Kilmarnock route and took an age. The train was quicker and must have been cheaper or we wouldn't have been using it.

http://railphotoprints.zenfolio.com/p74 ... #h3240510d

[margb]

So when did the train stop going to Kilmarnock and what stations did it stop at when it was running?

[Hughie]

Hi Margaret, I'd imagine it would have gone through the same towns as the buses and branch off at Kilwinning through Irvine, Dreghorn, Springside and Crosshouse. I'm guessing that the service was probably closed down by Beecham in the mid-1960s.

[margb]

I only wondered because by 1969-70 I went to Kilmarnock technical college for a year and was using the bus every day to get there. Like you hughie never knew there had been a train. Thank you

[Penny Tray]

and what stations did it stop at when it was running?

Margb,

That's an excellent question! Before I posted earlier I was racking my brain to remember by which route the train travelled and where it stopped. I only remember South Beach, Ardrossan; Saltcoats; Stevenston; possibly Irvine and, of course, Kilmarnock. My only other memory is a delay one day in Dreghorn, something to do with a problem with a 'level crossing' situated on the road between Dreghorn Cross and Stanecastle, Irvine.

I don't even have a recollection of Kilwinning but the era we're talking about would be before the Beeching cuts and alternative lines would still be available?

[meekan]

Hi Margaret, I'd imagine it would have gone through the same towns as the buses and branch off at Kilwinning through Irvine, Dreghorn, Springside and Crosshouse. I'm guessing that the service was probably closed down by Beecham in the mid-1960s.

Hughie,
you are correct on all counts. I used the train often in the early sixties going to work in Kilmarnock but only in the mornings. (Times were not suitable for the homeward journey.) I think Johnboy may also have travelled on the morning train. The Crosshouse station may have been at Knockintiber. I never used,
but remember seeing the railbus.

[down south]

I was taken on the train to Kilmarnock several times when I was small, but I have only one fleeting memory of it; that of passing over a level crossing on the main street of Dreghorn, which I was more familiar with from travelling by road; and the strangeness of visiting that spot from such a different angle to usual. In after years when the railway had closed down, every time we drove through Dreghorn and passed the gap in the buildings I reminded myself " That's where the railway came through ".

PS Or that's what I THOUGHT I remembered....but it's now been pointed out to me, which I've confirmed by looking at a detailed map, that the line that crossed the main road at the level crossing in the centre of Dreghorn wasn't the main line to Kilmarnock, but a side-line serving a colliery. I must have got it confused with the other level crossing, but then as I say I was very young at the time.


But anyway looking at the old map where the railway is marked Meekan is right about there being a Crosshouse Station out just beyond Knockentiber, where the line met another equally vanished one that connected to the Garnock Valley .

Susan

[margb]

These are the topics that are good to talk about. Like myself, I'm sure there are others who had no idea that this line and others existed and were taken away. Who is beecham (a politician)? That's why forums such as these are so important because not only do they remind the living of what is a memory but they are a future reference/tool for future generations to come.

[Meg]

Margb, Not a politician, but chairman of the railway board.


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_B ... n_Beeching

[Hughie]

That's why forums such as these are so important because not only do they remind the living of what is a memory but they are a future reference/tool for future generations to come.

You hit the nail on the head with that statement, Margaret.

Hughie

[Meg]

That's why forums such as these are so important because not only do they remind the living of what is a memory but they are a future reference/tool for future generations to come.

You hit the nail on the head with that statement, Margaret.

Hughie

Totally agree, I have said so often "wish my mum/dad/gran were still alive so I could ask them about that". Spear the auld yins for family or town history, or we'll lose it.

Meg