A Caledonian Collection

This afternoon’s presentation “The Caledonian Railway”, presented by Roger Pidgeon, was a full coverage of this railway throughout its life. (1845 – 1923).
We covered its many routes from Carlisle in the south, through Glasgow and on to Stirling, Dundee, Perth and Aberdeen in the north. The centre point for the railway was primarily St. Rollox works on the outskirts of Glasgow. In this period of operation this railway company purchased many buildings, hotels and warehouses as business assets. In these days there were many operational parts of the system operated by horses, such as shunting in small out of town stations, parcel and goods deliveries. The Caledonian Railway was a large freight operator, on many occasions special wagons were built to carry specific loads, such as boilers and larger pipes, as well as its everyday business which was primarily coal in small, by today’s standards, 6-ton wagons. In many ways the Cally could not complete with some of the larger railway companies, so in many cases it went for comfort and luxury on its trains and its hotels were of a very high standard, some the equivalent of Pullman trains, on some services a prestigious observation car was added.
A very descriptive afternoon with so many interesting facts and detail.

Dave Elsdon
Branch Secretary