It was absorbed by the North British Railway in 1881, who also thought it might give them a springboard towards Aberdeen; that scheme also failed to materialise, and the line remained a quiet backwater.

At length the local people promoted their own branch line, and they obtained their authorising Act of Parliament for the Montrose and Bervie Railway on 3 July 1860.

In fact two years of strenuous attempts to secure subscriptions were almost completely fruitless, and it appeared likely that the scheme would have to be abandoned.

[3] The GNoSR was alarmed by this development, but it saw that if the Montrose and Bervie line were built, it could build extensions northwards and southwards to link Stonehaven and Arbroath; if it could secure running powers over the SNER as well, it would have access from its network to Dundee.

A Bill was presented to Parliament for the 1863 session, with the north and south extensions included: together they were longer than the original route.

Parliament had granted the NBR running powers over large parts of the northern section of the Caledonian Railway, in order to encourage competition.

[1][page needed] (This was originally intended to be 1 August; the NBR paid 65% of the face value of M&BR stock and assumed the company's mortgage debt of £18,000.

When the North British, Arbroath and Montrose Railway opened its line, a spur was provided (authorised by an act of Parliament[which?]

[6][page needed] From 2 August 1897 the Caledonian Railway started operating its own train services on the Bervie line, exercising the running powers already granted.

However, there were local protests at this, and Caledonian goods services quickly resumed (on 17 October), but were finally discontinued from June 1899.

During World War II an aircraft approaching struck and demolished part of Broomfield Junction signal box.

The northern section, between Inverbervie and Gourdon is now a well surfaced footpath and is part of the National Cycle Network.

After a cliff top section to St Cyrus, the line wandered inland for a while before descending to the rocky shore at Johnshaven.

The track then curved round the back of Gourdon village and continued along the coast to a terminus close to Bervie Bay.

Architecturally the stations were undistinguished: all seven of them having basic single-storey buildings with horizontal timber planking and brick chimneys.