page_title: Waverley Route
section_title: Waverley Route Heritage Association
hierarchical_section_title: Waverley Route / Post-closure / Railway preservation societies / Waverley Route Heritage Association
caption_attribution_description: English: The Platform At Whitrope VA view of the platform at Whitrope Heritage Centre on a showery late summer day. This shot was taken during the centre's Open Weekend.
context_page_description: The Waverley Route was a railway line that ran south from Edinburgh, through Midlothian and the Scottish Borders, to Carlisle. The line was built by the North British Railway; the stretch from Edinburgh to Hawick opened in 1849 and the remainder to Carlisle opened in 1862. The line was nicknamed after the immensely popular Waverley Novels, written by Sir Walter Scott.
  The line was closed in 1969, as a result of the Beeching Report. Part of the line, from Edinburgh to Tweedbank, reopened in September 2015. The reopened railway is known as the Borders Railway.
context_section_description: By 2002, the voluntary Waverley Route Heritage Association (WRHA) had obtained a lease from Forest Enterprise and laid a short section of track at Whitrope Siding, south of Hawick. The Association's intention is to create a heritage railway between Whitrope and Riccarton which is generally aimed at the tourist market.
  A heritage centre and two-coach platform has been constructed on the site of Whitrope Siding, which never previously had a platform, although it was an unofficial stopping place and access was via a stepladder in the guard's brake van. Just north of Whitrope Siding is Whitrope Summit and Whitrope Tunnel; the WRHA has extended its running line for about 750 metres (2,500 ft) to the south portal of the tunnel. Track was also laid at Riccarton Junction but this has subsequently been lifted. The WRHA's first locomotive, Fowler 0-6-0DM diesel shunter no. 4240015, arrived on 9 December 2009, having previously been based at Hartlepool Nuclear Power Station and the Rutland Railway Museum.
  On 18 July 2010, the heritage centre was officially opened by the local Member of Parliament and Secretary of State for Scotland Michael Moore in the company of veteran campaigner Madge Elliot who led the campaign to save the Waverley Route in the late 1960s. To mark the 150th anniversary of the opening of the Waverley Route on 1 July 2012, Whitrope Siding saw its first passenger train since the line's closure in 1969.
caption: Whitrope Siding station in 2014
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