|  Third Time Lucky and The Car Ferry "Bute" gets a line ashore at Wemyss Bay Pier
(Photographed from Eglinton Drive by Jack Gallagher on Tuesday, January 10, 2006)
In winter conditions at Wemyss Bay, the very exposed berth can be impossible to quit in a southerly gale Undoubtedly one of Britain's finest architectural gems, Wemyss Bay's railway station and pier complex was opened officially on Monday, December 7, 1903. Designed by James Miller, The Caledonian Railway Company's own architect, the glass-roofed complex, with its 'Queen Anne' styled half-timbered frontage finished with roughcast and red sandstone, is dominated by a four-sided sixty-foot high clock tower. A truly majestic building it so captured the minds of a party of Japanese government officials, visiting Lord Inverclyde at nearby Castle Wemyss, that they requested copies of its plans in order that they could build an exact copy when they returned home to Japan later in the following year. It would be interesting indeed to know if Wemyss Bay has a 'Japananese twin' ! The Wemyss Bay Railway - Type WEMYSS BAY into Search Box at top of RailScot Page
For a Plan and Clickable Guide to Wemyss Bay station Go Here
[Copyright: Ewan Crawford 4/6/2004] THE STEAMERS The very first steamer in the Largs trade was M'Intyre's 1814-built "Glasgow" but, her engines proving unsatisfactory, she was quickly succeeded by Captain Kay's 1816-built "Albion", reliable but famed for her lack of speed, the "Largs" (1822); "Countess of Glasgow" (1825); "Fairy Queen" (1831) and then the "Hero" (1832), the first of M'Kellar's 'war-like' and 'planet' named steamers dominating the Glasgow to Largs and Millport route from 1832 onwards, when Largs pier was built, McKellar too later taking over the ships of his main opponent, Captain Young. Next came the "Gleniffer" (1831); "Apollo" (1832); "Nimrod" (1834); "Benledi" (1834); "Northern Yacht" (1835); "James Dennistoune" (1835); "Victor" (1836); "Robert Burns" (1838); "Sir William Wallace" (1838); then the first two-funnelled Clyde steamer, the "Warrior" (1839) and then Captain Young's two new ships, the "Lady Brisbane" (1842) and the "Lady Kelburne" (1843) which would quickly be taken over by McKellar's. Next to the Largs and Millport run came the "Invincible" (1844); "Countess of Eglinton" (1844), wrecked by an explosion at Millport in 1846; "Mars" (1845), wrecked at Largs' Gogo Burn on April 9, 1855; "Vesta" (1846), later burnt to the water at Ardnadam in 1888; "Star" (1849); "Venus" (1852); "Jupiter" (1856); "Spunkie" (1857); "Kelpie" (1857) and "Juno" (1860). But now, at the beginning of the 1860's, the American Civil War in progress, the fastest of the Clyde steamers being sold as blockade-runners and the new Greenock and Wemyss Bay Railway Company begun building the new ten-mile section from Port Glasgow to Wemyss Bay via the Kip Valley in November 1862, M'Kellar and all the other private steamer operators found themselves obliged to adopt a more business-like approach to their dealings. The original single-track line from Port Glasgow to Wemyss Bay opened on Monday, May 15, 1865 and it was built essentially both as an extension to the 1841 Glasgow to Greenock Railway and as part of a plan to build a line from Greenock to Largs. Double track was laid along the line from Port Glasgow to Upper Greenock and from Dunrod to Wemyss Bay in 1903 and, with land reclaimed from the shore and a new sea wall, Wemyss Bay's station and pier termini completely rebuilt on the site of its predecessor. In the original scheme for the Wemyss Bay line, approval had been given to erect a new station withinn the grounds of 'Clutha', a large villa on the Wemyss Estate at the three-way junction of Wallace, Undercliff and Wemyss Bay Roads and passengers would then walk the short distance to 'Whiting Bay' Pier, it built around the late 1840's, but opposition from the Burns family, then rebuilding Castle Wemyss and its surrounding estate, forced the building of the station and to their present site. |
