At the heart of the National Railway Museum, a locomotive is featured on the turntable which is the centrepiece for the collection. The choice of locomotive is changed from time to time, but of course the turntable is permanent. On your next visit, make a note of its maker's name – John Boyd of Annan. This ‘supporting actor’ on the stage of the York museum was manufactured in 1954 at a small family-owned factory on a siding which was once rather more than that – a main line linking Scotland and England by what was, at one time, the longest viaduct in Europe.
Annan is approximately halfway between Carlisle and Dumfries on the former Glasgow & South Western main line linking London (St. Pancras) and Glasgow (St. Enoch). In its time it saw express workings, some including Pullman cars, pass through without stopping, but Annan, with its population of 4,000 in the mid-twentieth century, had at least two through trains to and from St. Pancras daily, the daytime service being the ‘Thames-Clyde Express’ in London Midland & Scottish Railway and British Railways days.
Half a mile east of Annan station was Solway Junction. That was the Board of Trade's (BoT) name for this connection with the Solway Junction Railway but it is tempting to call it Solway Junction Junction to differentiate it from the company which built it. The SJR's main line ran from Kirtlebridge on the Caledonian Railway West Coast Main Line through Annan (Shawhill) and at 90 degrees over the G&SWR line southwards to the Firth, with this spur line from Annan (G&SWR) joining it, about a mile north of the famous viaduct over the Solway, reached by a down gradient of 1 in 80. (More about the viaduct later.) The spur was 33 chains in length (approximately 720 yards), with the Board specifying that 22 chains of this must be double-track.
The history of the junction with the G&SWR line proved complicated. When completed in 1872, the connection to the main line SJR, giving access to the Solway Viaduct from the Dumfries direction, appeared to be a single track line, with a signal box next to the level crossing here on the South Western main line, the gates of the crossing having to be opened by hand. For such a short line, and one not likely to handle passenger traffic, what became the Boyd Works siding occupied the Board of Trade once again fifteen years after the 1872 inspection. On this occasion, the Inspector clearly was not satisfied with the connection arrangements, especially with through traffic to and from London now running on the main line via the Settle & Carlisle. According to the Board documents, this factor alone required a lengthening of the interlocking bars here “to exceed the wheel base of the Pullman, the longest coach in use on the [main] line”.
An archived plan of the junction in 1887 carries the comment ‘New cabin controls L.C. [level crossing]. Old cabin
