The North British hoped that it would develop the town as a superior residential area, for people with daily business in Edinburgh.

That trade was slower to build up than the NBR intended, but the focus on golf as a pastime, and on the increase of visits to resort locations, led to the eventual establishment of the branch as a useful asset to the company.

c. cxcix) received royal assent on 24 August 1893;[note 1] the act specified that the line could not be extended through from Gullane to North Berwick without the consent of the NBR.

[4][page needed] The North British Railway were paying 4.5% to the shareholders of the little line, and operating it too; on 14 October 1899 they wrote to the Aberlady company offering to purchase it by exchange of shares in the NBR.

[4][page needed] Responding to these developments the North British Railway put on a train service named The Lothian Coast Express.

The arguments they pressed emphasised the development of a backward district, and the unification of branch connections at Longniddry, although they did not say whether they proposed that the Drem to North Berwick line should be closed.

The North British directors carefully considered the idea, but the fact of World War I being in progress, and the obvious rise of road motor vehicles in serving sparsely populated rural areas, and the undeveloped nature of the intervening terrain, meant that the proposal was politely put in abeyance.

From 1923 road scheduled public passenger transport started operation in the area, and in later years it became a powerful competitor, having many advantages over the branch railway service.

[4][page needed] From 7 May 1929 the branch was reduced to the one train only system of operation, with the signal boxes at Aberlady and Gullane closed.