View from Disused Railway Bridge

Image: © Ian Dodds Taken: 22 Jun 2021

At a glance you could be mistaken for thinking you were looking at a golf course. It is, in fact, just a freshly cut grass field. Not too sure whether the island of trees and vegetation is there due to the slopes being too steep for cutting/harvesting and grazing, or whether - due to their being a number of old small estate houses around here - it is private land rented to a farmer on the understanding that it has to remain looking pretty! I haven't traced the route of the entire railway line, but this part of it certainly ran from Bathgate to Slamannan, with stops at Westfield and Avonbridge on the way. As usual the passenger services were the first to go and freight services finally came to an end in the 1960s. The bridge carried the track over the Barbauchlaw Burn, shortly before it merges with Couston Water.

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