page_title: Earlston, East Ayrshire
section_title: Sawmill and railways
hierarchical_section_title: Earlston, East Ayrshire / History / Sawmill and railways
caption_attribution_description: English: Trackbed of old Blacksyke Tower branch, Earlston, East Ayrshire - view North towards the castle.
context_page_description: Earlston is a hamlet in East Ayrshire, Parish of Riccarton, Scotland. The habitation dates from at least the early 18th century as is situated near Caprington Castle and Todrigs Mill and was for many years the site of a large sawmill and a mine pumping engine served by a branch of the old Glasgow and South-Western Railway's Fairlie Branch off the Kilmarnock to Troon line that was otherwise used to serve coal pits and collieries.
context_section_description: In 1857 the branch to the Caprington Colliery No.40 pit had yet to be built. A building to the east of the railway at the junction to the sawmill is suggestive of a signal box but is later marked as a water meter. The railway continued towards Blacksyke Tower and to several other pits in the area at this time, the line being standard gauge and worked by locomotives by this date. 
  In the 1855-57 Name Book of the Ordnance Survey the Earlston Cottages and workshop are recorded as being the property of Thomas Smith Cuninghame Esq. of Caprington Castle. 
  In 1895 the sawmill was a complex of buildings with a network of railway sidings. A series of buildings ran parallel to the railway nearly as far as the road and internally several buildings were present, one with a siding running into it. The sidings may have also brought coal for use by the pumping engine as rails ran close to the site of this building. 
  The 1892 - 1913 OS map shows several sidings running into the sawmill, a passing loop, a branch running down to the Caprington Colliery No.40 pit and two sidings running into an old pit site that may have been for disposal of coal waste. A short head shunt ran across the road on the trackbed of the old mineral line to Blacksyke, Loreny, etc.
  By 1908 the railway had been truncated and no longer ran across the level crossing at the road and the passing loop had become sidings. The network within the sawmill had been simplified and the building opposite the sawmill junction is marked as a water meter. Caprington Colliery Np.40 pit is shown as disused with the line lifted and a new Caprington Colliery No.42 pit with a railway link is shown.
  By 1926 the sawmill is no longer marked and Todrigs is shown as being the site of kennels. The railway at this point runs only as far as the old sawmill and no collieries or their branches remain. In 1955 the railways had all been lifted. By 2018 the sawmill buildings had mostly been demolished.
caption: A view along the old railway trackbed towards Blacksyke Tower on the Caprington Golf Course.
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