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PETERHEAD PRISON RAILWAY  

The Peterhead Prison Railway was worked by prisoner under armed guard lay on the opposite side of the road at Stirling Hill  and
had  an extensive layout, which ran from the quarry to the south breakwater pier at Peterhead (Burnhaven). It was an isolated railway
built to high standards with it's own fleet of locomotives, and coaches and wagons. The coach were specially-built vehicles with
small barred windows, with  prisoners  being shackled in transit.  The track bed can be followed along the main road and there was a
very pleasant pink-granite viaduct as you entered Peterhead.  The quarry is still in operation but produces mainly Flint products. Flint
had been quarried here as far back as the Neolithic age. It was also the only State-Owned Railway in the UK that carried passengers
at the time. The quarry was buit and worked by prison labour.

 

Interesting see the actual station and the trains that worked the line. Also the type of
wagons and coaches that were used. The station was a completely bare, island platform.

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The road to Sandfordhill and Lendrum Terrace sign post, with the ex Boddam station site behind

Walking up Lendrum Road we come to the prison railway over bridge. Peterhead is to the far right.

The track bed can still be made out as it ran from the Lendrum Terrace over bridge above Boddam towards Peterhead

Ditto

Stirling Quarry at Boddam. Showing the prison railway station site

The over bridge at the top of Lendrum Terrace. Looking south.

Looking eastwards from the Lendrum Terrace over bridge the railway has been back-filled. From here the line ran straight
ahead into the quarry and station in a cutting,  with a spur running off to the left.

north from Lendrum Terrace over bridge, towards Peterhead

 
Prison Railway Fence Wire tensioning Post.                                                             Lendrum Terrace over bridge from the start of the infilled quarry line

The over bridge demonstrates the high standard that the railway was built to. If it hadn't been a private railway for the prison
it could have easily  been extended onto the  Boddam branch for a direct Peterhead-Aberdeen  train service. This may
have even  saved the branch from total  closure back in the latter 40's, and who knows, may still be open today!

There is little sign that the railway ran straight ahead into the quarry. This was as far as I dared go as I was on a private path and the quarry was
in full operation. You could hear machinery working and the crunching of stone in the distance. However, you would have seen the station
platform from here, straight up ahead. Due to extremely wet weather settling in for the rest of the day my planned walk over the line between
Boddam and Peterhead was rudely curtailed moments after these photos were taken. I enjoyed a rather wet walk around Boddam and an even
more enjoyable visit to an old  friend who's family we visited many times over the years since the late 40's and who made Boddam a place
which has remained a firm favourite, with many childhood memories with me.

Hopefully I will get back again next year and be able to complete my visit to the old prison railway. Until then I will add a number of photos
that I was able to grab from Google Street Views that will help to explain the remains of the line as they are today................

 

Remaining abutments of the next bridge to the one that went over the A90 and ran on an embankment towards the South
Breakwater Peir.

Ditto

The embankment running towards the breakwater pier. The lost village of Burnhaven was just up ahead.

A gap in the railway embankment made by the demolition of the bridger seen below.

It was another fine granite bridge  of which there was a number over the whole branch.

Overlooking the same gap as seen above the embankment is still recognised as it ran towards the goods yard and Navy Pier.

The railway embankment running towards the breakwater pier, with the Power Station at Boddam in the background.
This was the the area of Burnhaven village, which no longer exists.

Peterhead South Breakwater. Site of the Prison Railway terminal yard. The prisoners built much of the prison as well as the railway and
the long breakwater peir.

Burnhaven
I was fascinated by the photo of the man walking up the village street with the prison
railway bridge running  above on the embankment. It would be interesting to pin-point
this actual spot. It suggests that the village ran east to west rather than northwards
towards the sea. (See 'Nov.' comments below).

From the junction with South Road and looking towards Boddam. This is the reverse view of the old photo
above.The scholl is on the far right. The dirt path the man walks on has been widened. The green bushes
seen beyond the house and parked cars is the harbour side remains of the five arch viaduct and the over
bridge where the unction into the numerous goods sidings began.

Overhead View of Burnhaven with the bridge over the A90 and the five-arch viaduct (on the left) running
towards the  prison railway  harbour sidings. Of interest you can see the distillery in the center of the photo.
Off to the far right (Bottom) are the remains of castle! The goods yard was quite extensive. In reference to
the phot of the man walking up the road towards the railway over bridge you can now see the road running
up to the A90 junction just by the school. I wondered about the very heavy construction of the over bridge
and this  is answered by the fact that it ran below the railway just where the single line spread out to serve
the extensive sidings in the goods yard.

This Google Earth view covers pretty much the same area as the old photo above. The branch comes in just left of center at the bottom
of  the photo by the A90 road which it crossed over and ran along the side of South Base Road. S B Road actually runs along the
track bed for the rest of the way to the harbour from around the area of the Score Europe complex. Score Europe is on the old
Glenugie  Distillery site. The old Burnhaven road from the harbour up to the junction with South road by the school can be seen.
Back at the A90 where the branch crossed,  the old mill would  have been around where Starbucks and the Shell garage is today.

 Nov. 2010:

My thanks to Steward McLellan, who lives in Ontario for sending these photos and comments after finding this web site. Stewart gives an excellent 
description of his younger days at Burnhaven,when he lived in Peterhead.

Hi Bill.

Wow, did your e-Mail ever bring back memories for me. I left Peterhead just as they began construction of the power plant. In fact, my older brother
worked as a labourer at the plant during the first summer of construction while he was waiting to start his government job in London.  My dad was a
jail guard at the prison for many years and I am very familiar with the railroad. I spent the first 17 years of my life in the prison quarters on Seaview
Gardens. 

I logged onto the web tonight, as I wanted to see if I could get some information on the old village of Burnhaven. It amazed me the last time I was
back that the whole village just seemed to disappear to make way for a new sewage treatment plant.

I’ve attached a modern day photo of Peterhead and have highlighted some points of interest on it including where I believe the man was standing.
If you look at the photo you can see the fishing cottages to his left and the old Prison Railway Bridge ahead of him. This is the bridge where we spent
much time as kids. The glenugie distillery was beside the bridge and we used to get the old broken whiskey barrels from the distiller and take the
wood strips and make grass sleds out of them. There were steep embankments at either side of the old rail line behind the prison and we would grass
sled down the embankments during the summer.

I could not remember the name of the distillery and searched the Internet for it this morning and found another photo that brings back memories.
This is a shot of the distillery looking across their pond. We used to spend hours catching tadpoles in this pond. If you look just to the right of the
tower, you will see another of the old prison railway bridges. I remember this one also. It was slightly to the west of the one at the one I mentioned
above that we used to play at. It looks suspiciously like the bridge in the mans photo. Could it be possible that he was walking up the
hill to the Distillery?. Anyway, I remember playing around this bridge as well but I do not recall any cottages beyond the bridge so I still believe
he is walking up the road towards the South Road at Burnhaven School (which is the School that I attended).

If you look at your Photo of South Street, you will see that it begins to curve at the end. Just beyond this curve is where the road would go under
the bridge and into Burnhaven. The roadway to the right of South Street was higher in elevation and it went up and joined the old railway bed.
This is where we used to play with go carts that we would make as it was a fairly steep roadway with a nice sharp turn onto the what was the old
railway bed.

I remember the shock when I took my family back from Canada to Peterhead (I married a Canadian girl and my son was born in Canada). It was
about 12 years ago and I was exited to take them home and show them the village of Burnhaven. It was such a beautiful village. You can imagine
my shock when we got there only to find the village gone and construction of the water treatment plant underway. I was also quite shocked to see
how imposing the power plant stack was as you drove towards Peterhead.

You will notice on the old map that the railway splits into three lines at the entrance to the Peterhead Prison yards. The same buildings are on the old map as are on the modern
photo. I have highlighted the outline of two large in ground pits that have been filled in. If you go to the breakwaters at Peterhead, you will see that they are built out of grate
as well as from concrete block. These pits were where the concrete blocks were formed. While I do not know for sure, I would think that the rail lines were used for moving
concrete blocks out of the prison yards and to the Breakwater.I just quickly looked at a YouTube video of the"Forgotten Village of Burnhaven" and noticed that the picture of
the man from your website is on there as well. He is standing close to where the white van is in the first Burnhaven picture in the video.  I actually remember drinking from
the water pump that is shown in the video. I remember as a boy we would cut through the field at Burnhaven School and sit on the embankment just outside of the gate into
the Peterhead prison yard. Quite often we would walk down the hill from the embankment into the village of Burnhaven and down to the rocks. The hill on the way down to
the water had a row of closely spaced cottages at the side just like the ones shown in the Photo. In fact, I remember as a boy the last one caught fire and the old man who lived
in it perished in the blaze. I believe that the old man is walking up this hill.

Glenrugie Distillery, Peterhead. This no longer exists.  You can just make out the railway embankment and an over bridge to the left of the
chimney stack. (From Canmoresc).

Stewart Adds:

I was not aware that Glenugie had closed down.  That is quite sad to hear as I spent many days playing there as a kid. As for the bridge directly behind the distillery, this
was a back road into Burnhaven.  We used to take the road under the bridge to go to at the beach at Sandford bay. The road would go from the South Road and under the
bridge where there was a little used pathway over Sandford bay.  Sandford bay had a really nice sandy beach, which was much different from Burnhaven, which just had
a rock shore.  It was hard to reach Sandford Bay so it was always very quite.Interestingly, I do not recall ever walking the rail bed between the bridge behind the
Distillery and the Bridge at the prison work yards even though they could not have been more than a few hundred meters apart.  I would have to think that there was a
reason for this because as boys we were quite adventurous.  We always went down South Road to the distillery and took the back road into Burnhaven if we wanted to
go to Sandford Beach or we would walk along the shore from Burnhaven. 

If you look at the bridge in the Photo with the old man, you will notice that there is quite a long wall at either side of the bridge.  This is why I am quite sure that the
bridge in the picture is the one by the Prison work yards.

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Update October 2016

PRESERVED PRISONER'S COACH (Maud Jctn Site)

On the 17th of September 2016 I enjoyed a visit to Maud Junction Station Site (Waling from Mintlaw to Maud and back).
The reason for the visit was to see the preserved Peterhead Prisoner's Coach that has recently been put on display on a
 section of track by the old Up Fraserburgh-Aberdeen platform. It is accompanied by a Tool or Explosives Van that had been
on display at the Prison, which is now a Prison Museum.

They have done an excellent job of the preservation of the Prisoner's Coach which ran on the Stirling Quarry railway and
which ran between the quarry, at Boddam, to the breakwater pier at Peterhead. It was a standard gauge branch and fully
signaled. The quarry and trains were worked by prisoners, under armed gaurd. The work on the two breakwater piers began
in the 1890's and was expected to take 25 years. However, due to delays by the two World Wars it was not completed until 1958. 
The branch was closed and dismantled immediately after completion of the work.

Two  of the prisoner coaches parked in a field for many years. (Photo from CS.rlwp.org.UK web site) Added March 2022.

 

 
The coach & wagon are displayed on the Up Fraserburgh platform

 
The small four-wheeled wagon was probably used for carry tools and utilities and/or expolsives. This was was on display at Peterhead Prison for some years.

 

 
Left: As seen from the Island platform.                                                                                               Right: Seen from the Up Peterhead platform. This is roughly where the footbridge stood between
                                                                                   the two platforms.

 
The coach consisted of a single doorway and a line of barred windows along the top edge of the coach.

 

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Update April 2017

During a further visit to the Maud Station Site I was disappointed to find that the Gunpowder/Tools wagon had been damaged.I did wonder about displaying these items out
in the open  and where anyone can get onto the site at any time. It doesn't take long for some mindless individual or group to damage things that they have no understanding
of the historical importance of things and the work ad expense that went into preserving things for the betterment of society.

They have obviously climbed on top of the wagon sand broken the roof and also tried to force open the doors. Thank goodness they were unable to get into the prisoner's
wagon.

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A tour by car around the breakwater on Youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YMxZIHrRyx4&NR=1&feature=fvwp

Also comment on the lost village of Burnhaven. N.B. this is spoken in the local dialect known as Doric.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XJXDVudG3UM

Both by Youtube user known as Kintakintyea (Interesting that it reads, in English, "I knew I knew you". Weel done, loon.

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Email: reidcrcwdr@aol.com.

Web sites with reference to Cruden Bay, the raliway, Slain's Castle and the Bullar's. (Updated Oct. 2008)

Cruden Bay Trams
http://www.crudenbaygolfclub.co.uk/newrailway.htm

Slain's Castle
http://www.crudenbaygolfclub.co.uk/newplaces.htm

Cruden Bay
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cruden_Bay

Cruden Bay Historical Notes
http://www.danielsd.demon.co.uk/cruden/cruden.htm

Cruden Bay (Gazzateer)
http://www.geo.ed.ac.uk/scotgaz/towns/townfirst5008.html

Ellon to Boddam Branch
http://www.railscot.co.uk/Boddam_Branch/body.htm

Focus On Aberdeenshire (Cruden bay)
http://www.londongolftours.com/docs/tours/focus_on_aberdeenshire.htm

Buchaness Lighthouse
http://www.nlb.org.uk/ourlights/history/buchanness.htm

Buchan RAF (Former Rotar Radar station)
http://www.subbrit.org.uk/rsg/sites/b/buchan/

The Crann Tarra (Cultural History) web site
http://www.cranntara.org.uk/peter.htm