Broughty Ferry railway station

Broughty Ferry railway station serves the suburb of Broughty Ferry in Dundee, Scotland. The station was opened on 6 October 1838 on the Dundee and Arbroath Railway. When North British Railway were granted joint ownership of the line on 21 July 1879, the station buildings were gradually rebuilt until around 1900.

Broughty Ferry
Scottish Gaelic: Port Bhruachaidh[1]
Broughty Ferry railway station
Location
Place	Broughty Ferry
Local authority	Dundee City
Coordinates	56.4677°N 2.8741°W / 56.4677; -2.8741
Grid reference	NO462309
Operations
Station code	BYF
Managed by	Abellio ScotRail
Number of platforms	2
Live arrivals/departures, station information and onward connections from National Rail Enquiries
Annual rail passenger usage*
2014/15	41,246
2015/16	43,276
2016/17	40,718
2017/18	43,330
2018/19	57,454
Listed status
Listing grade	Category A
Entry number	LB25823[2]
Added to list	8 May 1985
National Rail – UK railway stations
* Annual estimated passenger usage based on sales of tickets in stated financial year(s) which end or originate at Broughty Ferry from Office of Rail and Road statistics. Methodology may vary year on year.

It is the oldest railway station in Scotland which is still in operation.[3]

History

At 7:20 pm on 21 October 1991, a Dundee bound Aberdeen–London Intercity express destroyed two out of the four gates of the level crossing. The fifty passengers on board and five people in a passing car were fortunate to avoid collision when the train passed through the crossing at around 80 miles per hour.[4] The gates had not been closed before the train passed the level crossing. Dundee District Council (now defunct) had previously postponed planning permission to modernise the gates. They were replaced by the current arrangement of four barriers in 1995, with control transferred to Dundee Signalling Centre.

Subsequent restoration of the station saw the removal of the historic footbridge, which now languishes behind the westbound platform, leaving only an underpass for those wishing to cross the line at Gray Street, or walk the short distance to another overbridge, when the barriers are lowered. The footbridge was closed to the public before the crossing was modernised.

Service frequencies at the station have varied significantly over the years - prior to 1990, there were regular local trains to Arbroath & Dundee/Perth throughout the day along with a small number of longer-distance workings (see the GB National Rail Timetables 1988/89 Table 242 for details), but a shortage of rolling stock led to the service being significantly cut at the May timetable change that year. For the next twenty years, only a handful of trains (4 per day each way on average) stopped here, but since then there has a gradual increase in provision following a campaign by the local authority & rail user groups (eight additional stops were added in December 2011 [5]). From 2018, an hourly service is planned for this station, Monifieth and Carnoustie as part of a major timetable upgrade backed by Transport Scotland.[6]

From December 2018, a roughly hourly service (Monday to Saturday daytime) to Arbroath northbound, and to Edinburgh southbound, was introduced. In the evenings southbound trains terminate at Dundee.[7]

Services

2016

Monday to Saturday: 16 services call at Broughty Ferry. There are 9 services northbound, 2 of which terminate at Inverurie, 4 at Aberdeen, 1 at Arbroath and 1 at Carnoustie. There is also an early morning departure to Inverness (Saturdays excepted). There are 7 services southbound, 3 of which terminate at Glasgow Queen Street, 2 at Edinburgh, 1 at Perth (Monday - Thursday and early Saturday) and 2 at Dundee (1 Saturdays only).[8]

Sunday: There are 3 services Northbound, terminating at Aberdeen and 4 services southbound, 2 of which terminate at Edinburgh, 1 at Glasgow Queen Street and 1 at Perth.

2018/19

Monday to Saturday: There is an hourly service in each direction, to both Edinburgh via Dundee and Kirkcaldy, and to Arbroath. This takes the daily number of services from 16 up to 36, as part of a service upgrade between Dundee and Arbroath.

Sunday: Service levels remain low, with only 3 northbound services to Aberdeen and 3 southbound services- 2 to Edinburgh and 1 to Perth

References

1. Brailsford, Martyn, ed. (December 2017) [1987]. "Gaelic/English Station Index". Railway Track Diagrams 1: Scotland & Isle of Man (6th ed.). Frome: Trackmaps. ISBN 978-0-9549866-9-8.CS1 maint: ref=harv (link)
2. Historic Environment Scotland. "Broughty Ferry, Gray Street, Railway Station including Subway  (Category A) (LB25823)". Retrieved 26 March 2019.
3. "2014 Rail Public Consultation, 7.2". 2014. Cite journal requires |journal= (help)
4. "80 mph train misses five "by yards"". Dundee Courier and Advertiser. 23 October 1991. pp. 11, 14.
5. "Campaign pays off with more train stops at Broughty Ferry"The Courier news article, 16 September 2011; Retrieved 18 August 2016
6. "‘Rail revolution’ means 200 more services and 20,000 more seats for Scots passengers" Archived 20 August 2016 at the Wayback MachineTransport Scotland press release 15 March 2016, Retrieved 18 August 2016
7. "ScotRail Timetables". ScotRail. 22 October 2019. Retrieved 22 October 2019.
8. GB eNRT May 2016 Edition, Table 229

External links

• RailScot History of Broughty Ferry station

Preceding station	National Rail			Following station
Dundee		Abellio ScotRail Edinburgh to Aberdeen Line		Balmossie
Dundee		Abellio ScotRail Glasgow to Aberdeen Line		Balmossie
	Historical railways
West Ferry Line open: Station closed		Dundee and Arbroath Railway		Monifieth Line and Station open
West Ferry Line open: Station closed		Dundee and Arbroath Railway Broughty Ferry Pier Branch		Broughty Ferry Pier Line and Station closed
West Ferry Line open, Station closed		Caledonian Railway Dundee and Forfar Direct Line		Barnhill Line and Station closed