Symington, Biggar and Broughton Railway

The Caledonian saw it as a strategic acquisition, potentially giving it access to the Borders towns more widely, but this aim never materialised, and the line did not develop beyond its purely local status.

[1][2] Biggar was an important town, and the topography of the region was such that a railway connection posed no engineering difficulty.

The Caledonian Railway was friendly to them, seeing their line as a possible launching point for access to the Lothian coalfields.

[3] In 1857 plans for the line were taking definite shape, with the guidance of the engineer John Miller.

[3] Although the continuation to Broughton was very simple, along the broad valley of the Biggar Water, it is not clear what was the intended benefit of this lengthy extension.

During the construction period, the Company decided to extend the line to Peebles, which was an important Burgh.

Lord Elgin had declared that he would oppose the Bill unless the railway were carried through tunnel at Neidpath on his property.

Much earlier Peebles had been an agreed frontier post between Caledonian and NBR expansion, but that agreement was long forgotten.

Now negotiation resulted in the Caledonian allowing the NBR to build a line to Galashiels without opposition in Parliament; in return it could make a triangular junction with the NBR (Peebles Railway) line at Peebles, facing north and south.

[3] The triangular junction at Peebles, fought for so fiercely with visions of through running into the heart of NBR territory, was reduced in scope to a simple transfer link.

This was a prodigious undertaking involving the import of considerable volumes of materials, and the Talla Railway was built as a service line for the purpose.

The Talla Railway was over 10 miles (16 km) long running almost due south from Broughton.

The North British Railway station on the other side of town was renamed "Peebles East" on 25 September 1950.

[10] From 1883 the Caledonian had attempted to encourage tourist traffic at Peebles and Moffat, and ran a train from both places, combining at Symington, to Glasgow and Edinburgh in the morning, returning in the afternoon.

It was called The Tinto Express[2] although there were eight intermediate stops between Symington and Glasgow Central in the northbound direction.