An unusual feature was that, as the line was partly unfenced, the locomotives were required to be fitted with cowcatchers, an arrangement rarely found in United Kingdom practice.

Although the Formartine company was nominally independent, it was heavily supported by the Great North of Scotland Railway, which was based in Aberdeen.

This benefitted masters working out of smaller ports like Inverallochy and St Combs, that had previously landed insignificant volumes, but they now required improved transport to get to market.

Its promoters were offering free land but no cash, and they asked the GNoSR to provide £9,000 and to construct and work the line.

Instead, it was stipulated that engines in regular use on the line were to be fitted with cowcatchers in front, and at both ends if no turntables were provided, which was the case.

Had advantage been taken of these powers, the line would have been an example, unique in Great Britain, of a type of rural electric railway that became common on the Continent of Europe.

[citation needed] The first timetable showed six trains in each direction, of which several were mixed (conveying goods wagons as well as passenger vehicles).

Because of the limited space available, the engines had vertical dome-topped boilers, supplied by Cochran & Co., of Annan –the first of their kind to be used for railway work.

They had been tried first of all on the Aberdeen suburban services; they were unsuccessful there, and it was thought that the shorter runs and less intensive working was mor suitable for them.

[citation needed] They failed completely to justify claims made for them; the small boilers were incapable of maintaining adequate steam pressure, and they were noisy and uncomfortable in motion.

The success of this arrangement led to the placing of a letter box on the brake van of the 5.40 pm St. Combs-Fraserburgh train from October 1910.

[15] In June 1959, multiple-unit diesel trains took over all the passenger services on the Buchan lines, including the St Combs branch.