The most important quarry for extraction of the material was around the village of Carmyllie, a settlement located in high ground about 6 miles (8 km) west of Arbroath.

With the exception of certain turnpike roads, the roadways in the area were very poor, and transport to market by horse and cart to Arbroath (for onward coastwise shipping) was difficult.

The Marquess of Dalhousie was the principal landlord in the area, and he determined to improve the situation by building a railway branch line to the D&AR at Elliot.

They are situated six miles from Arbroath in the parish of Carmylie which forms part of the south eastern breast of the Sidlaw Hills and consists chiefly of a series of high grounds scarcely approaching to hills with their intervening valleys running from south west to east The quarries belong to the Earl of Dalhousie and are at present leased by Messrs Duncan Falconer & Co They have been worked for several centuries all over the parish.Earlier farmers had quarried stone on their own land and carted the stone to Arbroath in their milk carts; but about 1804 the quarries began to be worked on a more extensive scale.

The machinery employed at that time consisted of a small single power crane which with care might be made to lift a stone a ton in weight.

The Caledonian saw its future as the controller of a large railway network throughout much of Scotland, and it engaged in continuing absorptions of smaller concerns.

Its objective was to reach Aberdeen, and it requested the transfer of the Dundee and Arbroath line to joint ownership (between the Caledonian Railway and the NBR).

The Government had wished to encourage the provision of rail passenger services in remote areas without the heavy costs of main line operating controls, and in 1896 the Light Railways Act 1896 was passed.

A Board of Trade certificate was required without the expense of an individual Act of Parliament, and with (unspecified in legislation) relaxations of operational procedures.

[9][page needed] Typical passenger services in 1922 consisted of two round trips per day between Arbroath and Carmyllie, one in the morning and one in the evening, with journey times between 31 and 46 minutes.

In the early 1960s the Metal Box company established a new factory at Elliot, on the north side of the line and of the main road (A92).

[15] The site of Elliot Junction station remains part of the operational railway between Dundee and Aberdeen, with the outline of the central island platform visible between the two running lines.