Beattock Summit is the highest point of the
West Coast Main Line
The West Coast Main Line (WCML) is one of the most important railway corridors in the United Kingdom, connecting the major cities of London and Glasgow with branches to Birmingham, Manchester, Liverpool and Edinburgh. It is one of the busiest ...
(WCML) railway and of the
A74(M) motorway as they cross between
Dumfries and Galloway
Dumfries and Galloway (; ) is one of the 32 unitary council areas of Scotland, located in the western part of the Southern Uplands. It is bordered by East Ayrshire, South Ayrshire, and South Lanarkshire to the north; Scottish Borders to the no ...
and
South Lanarkshire
South Lanarkshire (; ) is one of 32 unitary authorities of Scotland. It borders the south-east of the Glasgow City council area and contains some of Greater Glasgow's suburban towns, as well as many rural towns and villages. It also shares bor ...
in south west
Scotland
Scotland is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It contains nearly one-third of the United Kingdom's land area, consisting of the northern part of the island of Great Britain and more than 790 adjac ...
.
The height of the summit reached by the A74(M) motorway is 1,033 feet (315 m) above
sea level
Mean sea level (MSL, often shortened to sea level) is an mean, average surface level of one or more among Earth's coastal Body of water, bodies of water from which heights such as elevation may be measured. The global MSL is a type of vertical ...
. The adjacent railway reaches a slightly lower elevation of .
The summit is the watershed between the
River Clyde
The River Clyde (, ) is a river that flows into the Firth of Clyde, in the west of Scotland. It is the eighth-longest river in the United Kingdom, and the second longest in Scotland after the River Tay. It runs through the city of Glasgow. Th ...
to the north and Evan Water, a tributary of the
River Annan to the south.
Railway history
The summit is the highest point on the
Caledonian Railway Main Line north of the border (built by the
Caledonian Railway and opened on 15 February 1848), it is located 52 miles (83 km) south of
Glasgow Central and 349 miles (558 km) north of
London Euston stations.
It is 62 miles (100 km) north of the second highest point on the WCML -
Shap Summit in
Cumbria
Cumbria ( ) is a ceremonial county in North West England. It borders the Scottish council areas of Dumfries and Galloway and Scottish Borders to the north, Northumberland and County Durham to the east, North Yorkshire to the south-east, Lancash ...
.
The northbound climb has a ascent, with
gradient
In vector calculus, the gradient of a scalar-valued differentiable function f of several variables is the vector field (or vector-valued function) \nabla f whose value at a point p gives the direction and the rate of fastest increase. The g ...
s of up to 1 in 69 (1
foot
The foot (: feet) is an anatomical structure found in many vertebrates. It is the terminal portion of a limb which bears weight and allows locomotion. In many animals with feet, the foot is an organ at the terminal part of the leg made up o ...
of rising or falling gradient for every 69 feet of distance) which made it a notoriously severe climb in the days of
steam locomotive
A steam locomotive is a locomotive that provides the force to move itself and other vehicles by means of the expansion of steam. It is fuelled by burning combustible material (usually coal, Fuel oil, oil or, rarely, Wood fuel, wood) to heat ...
s, which frequently required
banking assistance to get their trains up the incline. There was an engine shed at
Beattock which had banking locomotives on standby twenty-four hours per day to minimise train delays.
The railway was
electrified in 1974 by
British Rail
British Railways (BR), which from 1965 traded as British Rail, was a state-owned company that operated most rail transport in Great Britain from 1948 to 1997. Originally a trading brand of the Railway Executive of the British Transport Comm ...
.
The signal box at the summit was also removed as part of the electrification project, with the signalling now being controlled from a new power signal box at Motherwell.
The severity of the climb to the summit is referenced in
W. H. Auden's poem ''
Night Mail'', written in 1936 for the
G.P.O. Film Unit's celebrated production of the same name.
Private station
The summit was the location of a private halt from 1900 to around 1926.
[Butt (1995), page 30] 1966
[Railway passenger stations by M.Quick page 70]
See also
*
Shap Summit
References
Notes
Sources
*
*
*
*
Beattock Summit on navigable OS map*
British Transport Films, (1974). "Wires over the Border". Disc One, Track 5, In: British Transport Films Collection. Volume 3: ''Running a Railway''. (DVD Format), BFIVD720.
{{Authority control
Mountain passes of Scotland
Roads in Scotland
Disused railway stations in South Lanarkshire
Former Caledonian Railway stations
Railway stations in Great Britain opened in 1900
Railway stations in Great Britain closed in 1926
1900 establishments in Scotland
1926 disestablishments in Scotland
Private railway stations
Railway inclines in the United Kingdom
West Coast Main Line