page_title: Lauder Light Railway
section_title: The line opens
hierarchical_section_title: Lauder Light Railway / History / The line opens
caption_attribution_description: English: North British 4-4-0 No. 52 at Lauder, soon after it opened on 2 July 1901
context_page_description: The Lauder Light Railway was a railway line opened in 1901 to connect the remote agricultural settlement of Lauder in Berwickshire with the main line of the Waverley Route railway at Fountainhall. Traffic was never heavy and bus competition led to closure to passengers in 1932. Goods traffic might not have survived but a Food Buffer Depot was established at Lauder during World War II and the rail-borne traffic sustained the line for some years. It closed finally in 1958 and little now remains, though bits of the formation, including embankments and cuttings, are visible at Middletoun.
context_section_description: Major Pringle of the Board of Trade inspected the line on 28 June 1901 and found it fit for passenger operation, and the line opened on 2 July 1901. The North British Railway worked the line. The line was actually built for £39,811. It was the first light railway in Scotland.
  There were four passenger trains each way daily; there was never a Sunday service. There was one intermediate passenger station, at Oxton.
  Shortly after opening, the NBR complained that the cattle dock was unsatisfactory. Cattle had previously been walked to St Boswells for onward rail transport to Newcastle and the NBR emphasised that the rate for the carriage of cattle to Newcastle would need to be pitched carefully to attract the traffic.
  The short line was of local interest only, and the income from the first three months of operation after deduction of the NBR operation charges was £383.
  The line certainly encouraged visitors to the area; a new temperance hotel opened in Lauder at the time of opening of the railway, and at Oxton the Tower Hotel opened in 1903. Trout fishing was a noted activity locally and was facilitated by the opening of the line.
caption: North British 4-4-0 No. 52[6] at Lauder, soon after it opened on 2 July 1901[7]
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