The Caledonia and the iron road to the seaside in 1812: Scotland’s first passenger rail service

On 6^th July 1812 the Kilmarnock & Troon Railway, built by the 4^th Duke of Portland to transport coal to Troon harbour by horse-drawn wagons, went into full operation. Until this time, Troon had been an out-of-the-way undeveloped anchorage with nothing but a few fishermen’s cottages – a haunt of smugglers. It was thanks to the railway that a harbour town grew up there.

The Duke (while still the Marquess of Titchfield, before succeeding to the dukedom) had purchased Troon Point and the surrounding land from its ancient owners, the Fullarton family. He began building a harbour from which he could export coal, mined on his estates near Kilmarnock, to Ireland. At first a canal was planned to get the coal from Kilmarnock to Troon, but eventually it was decided to build a railway instead.

The Ayr Advertiser (or Air Advertiser as it was then) advertises the launch of the Caledonia’s 1812 schedule

Although many short-distance coal wagonways already existed, this was the first railway in Scotland to be authorised by an Act of Parliament, to connect two towns, and to have a scheduled passenger service. It would also be the first railway in Scotland on which a steam locomotive was tried out.

Having ceased over the winter, the passenger service is resumed in spring 1813.

There had been some carriage of passengers on the single track which was opened during 1811, including a fatal accident, but in June 1812, with the double track nearing completion, the first advertised scheduled passenger rail service in Scotland was launched. A notice in the Ayr Advertiser announced that the horse-drawn carriage Caledonia, carrying passengers and goods from Kilmarnock to Troon on the iron railway, would leave Kilmarnock every Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday at 9.15am, and commence the return journey from Troon at 6pm. Special runs could be arranged on other days.  The railway company estimated how many passengers made up a ton and levied a freight charge on the operators per ton, the same as for general cargo.

‘Mr Thomson at Troon’ in the adverts was Saul Thomson, first licensee of the newly-completed Portland Arms Inn on Templehill. This advert from the Advertiser isn’t intended to portray the inn – it’s a stock woodcut for any large establishment. A siding for passenger and general freight traffic ran in front of the inn, while the coal wagons continued on to the pier.

The original Portland Arms burned down in 1847 and was replaced by the building which is now the Anchorage Hotel.

The service stopped running in autumn 1812, but it had proved popular with day trippers to the seaside, and started up again in May next year. Inside passengers paid two shillings & sixpence return and one shilling and sixpence single. Outside passengers – sitting on the roof – paid one shilling & sixpence return and one shilling single. William Paterson of Kilmarnock, originally the principal operator, had a partner, William Wright, and his Wright family descendants would later run a carriage hire business from premises on the site of the Walker Halls in Troon.  Over the years until 1846, when the line began conversion for steam haulage only, a number of horse-drawn passenger carriages operated. They bore various names, but Caledonia had become a generic term for them all. When what would become Royal Troon Golf Club was founded in 1878, it is said that their first changing room was the body of a Caledonia which had been converted to a shed.

A shelter opposite the Anchorage Hotel has an information board about the railway, as well as boards on Troon shipbuilding and lifeboats.