How many readers of this magazine have the good fortune to live in a house which directly looks on to a railway line? Back in 1911 and 1912 a number of residents of the town of Oban had probably considered themselves fortunate in that their properties looked over the Callander & Oban Railway's (C&O) line into the town and a further parcel of land belonging to the company which, they fondly believed, could not have anything built on it. Although the owning company is referred to here as the C&O, to all intents and purposes it was the Caledonian Railway (CR) which actually operated the line. All its own houses and lands were under restrictions as to what could be built there, ie residential properties only, and such restrictions had so far been generally applied to prevent the establishment of any business premises in the vicinity. It must therefore have come as an unpleasant surprise to learn what was contained in a Caledonian Railway Provisional Order which was about to be considered by Parliament. This sought, inter alia, to increase the CR's powers in various ways including extending the time for completion of certain works, to purchase land and “to permit the Callander & Oban Railway to hold and to dispose of surplus lands which have not been applied and may or may not hereafter be required for the purpose of the undertaking of the Oban Company and it is expedient that further powers should be conferred on that Company with respect to such lands…”.
On the face of it this seems innocuous enough until it became clear that the surplus railway land referred to was that between the residential properties and the operational railway. Nowhere does it state what the land might be used for if leased or sold off but the residents had been made aware by a local solicitor who lived nearby that the company had plans to let off one or more plots of the land for “the establishment of trades which would be most offensive and would ruin the neighbourhood for residential purposes”.
It seems that the C&O had already erected a building on this land (described as being near the station) which they intended to be used as a kippering facility and it may be that the ratepayers were under the misapprehension that a second one was proposed by the terms of Clause 19 whereby the powers sought were to dispose of or to lease off the land on which the existing building stood. It most certainly is not clear from the wording of the Order nor from some of the newspaper reports.
