choo, chooo Bo'ness Railway

Bo'ness was once a major port on the Firth of Forth it is situated sixteen miles west of  Edinburgh. There was a busy railway connection along the foreshore from Kinneil to Carriden. Over seven miles of  sidings were laid to serve the port and harbour. Withdrawn steam engines were stored on the sidings as a temporary measure during 1962-63. Afterwards the track was lifted and the area grassed over. A passenger service went to Polmont, this ended in 1956.

At a meeting in Edinburgh in November 1961 a new organisation was set up called the Scottish Railway Preservation Society (SRPS). The aims of the SRPS were to: 'acquire relics of the railways of Scotland, to restore them to original condition wherever possible, and to display them to the public either in use on a line or in a static display.'

Planning permission was granted to the SRPS in July 1978 to build a railway system. Initially construction started at Bo'ness on the former sidings where a station was constructed which included buildings from Wormit, south of the Tay bridge. An engine shed was erected using a building from Edinburgh Haymarket station which was the terminus of the Edinburgh and Glasgow Railway.

The railway opened to the public on 27 June 1981 with a celebration of transport. Every kind of vehicle was on display from horse drawn carts to hang gliders. Thousands of passengers were carried on the trains over the first weekend.

When the passenger service started the Bo'ness and Kinneil Railway (BKR) had ½ mile of track, by 1987 Kinneil had been reached and the line was completed to Birkhill in 1989. A further length of track past Birkhill connects the BKR to the main line at Manuel Junction.

At Bo'ness there is the Scottish Railway Museum which is open when trains are running. The Museum has a large selection of historic locomotives, carriages and wagons on display.

Three steam locomotives are operational they are LNER 4-4-0 No.246 ‘Morayshire’, WD Austerity 0-6-0ST No.7 and  Neilson Reid 0-6-0T  No.1 'Lord Roberts', many other locomotives are being restored, displayed or stored on site.