Edinburgh, Leith and Newhaven Railway
The Edinburgh, Leith and Newhaven Railway was a railway company formed in 1836 to connect the city of Edinburgh with the harbours on the Firth of Forth. When the line connected to Granton, the company name was changed to the Edinburgh, Leith and Granton Railway. It opened part of its route in 1846, but reaching the centre of Edinburgh involved the difficult construction of a long tunnel; this was opened in 1847. It was on a steep incline and was worked by rope haulage.
The rope-worked tunnel proved a major handicap, and after the company had been taken over by the North British Railway, a longer but more convenient route was built round the eastern edge of the city at Abbeyhill. It opened in 1868.
By the end of the nineteenth century the Leith station was unsuitable for the developing suburban passenger traffic, and a new branch to Leith Central station was built, opening in 1903.
All of the original route has been dismantled, except part of the line from Piershill to a waste consolidation depot at Powderhall which remains in use.
The coast of the Firth of Forth runs west to east broadly 2 1⁄2 miles north of the centre of Edinburgh. As the capital of Scotland, Edinburgh was of supreme commercial importance, and the port of Leith became Scotland's principal port. Its first harbour was constructed immediately after 1710. The harbour facilities were much extended between 1800 and 1817. Newhaven, to the west of Leith, also served as a ferry port; its modest harbour facilities were improved after 1792 by the building of a jetty, and in 1825 a basin was formed by the construction of an L-shaped pier. Other small coastal communities on the Forth engaged in fishing and other maritime activities.
Communication with the parts of Scotland further north, and also to the north east coast of England was secured by coastal shipping, and crossings to the southern coast of Fife, easily visible from Leith, were made by large and small boats, connecting with stage coaches.
The sea passage was generally straightforward, although slow and sometimes subject to interruption by bad weather. Getting to the harbour, whether for people or goods, was problematic for such a relatively short distance, and the success of the "coal railways", the Monkland and Kirkintilloch Railway of 1826 and its successors, caused business interests in Edinburgh to meet in 1835 to consider a railway connection from the city to the Forth. This resulted in a Parliamentary Bill in the 1836 session, and the Edinburgh, Leith and Newhaven Railway obtained its authorising Act of Parliament on 13 August 1836.
...
Wikipedia