Dear Spurtle,
For the second time in a just over a quarter, I am impelled to write to correct a transport-related Spurtle article.
While it is correct that the railway line past the site was used for passenger services until 1917, the statement that 'from 1970 to 2016, the line was used to transport compacted waste from here to a landfill site in Dunbar' is, unfortunately, rubbish.
As local historian Andy Arthur has related in his article about the Powderhall Waste Destructor, the recently demolished 'compactor' was opened in 1971 as an incinerator, with facilities added to take some waste to landfill. In 1986, the incinerator was shut down due to a public campaign, and it was only in 1989 that the 'Binliner' rail service, initially to Kaimes on the Edinburgh–Carstairs line, started removing compacted waste from the site.
Photos on the RailScot website show the absence of facilities in 1986, with the old passenger platforms in place; in 1989, with the rail transfer facility under construction; and later in 1989, in operation. Waste transfer to Dunbar started in 1997, when the Kaimes landfill site had filled up with Dunedin's detritus.
Before I get back to curating my collection of historic EDC and CEC bin bags, I thought readers might be interested to know of something that did happen close to Powderhall in 1970, namely the crash at Chancellot Mills, in which two Type 4 locomotives met head-on, with dramatic results but no casualties.
David Sterratt