Killochan railway station

Killochan
Killochan Station looking towards Ayr
Location
Place	Between Dailly and Girvan
Coordinates	55°16′02″N 4°48′00″W / 55.267314°N 4.800088°W / 55.267314; -4.800088Coordinates: 55°16′02″N 4°48′00″W / 55.267314°N 4.800088°W / 55.267314; -4.800088
Grid reference	NS 22193 00592
Operations
Number of platforms	2
History
Original company	Maybole and Girvan Railway
Pre-grouping	Glasgow and South Western Railway
Post-grouping	London, Midland and Scottish Railway
24 May 1860	Opened
1 January 1951	Closed
National Rail – UK railway stations
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

[ ] Maybole and Girvan Railway
Ayr and Maybole Junction Railway Maybole Junction Maybole (old) Maybole (new) Kilkerran Dailly Bargany Coal Mine Killochan Grangeston Halt(private station) Maidens and Dunure Light Railway Girvan Junction Girvan (Old) Girvan (New) Girvan and Portpatrick Junction Railway

Killochan railway station was located in a rural part of South Ayrshire, Scotland and mainly served the nearby Killochan Castle estate. The Killochan bank is the name given to this section of the line, running from Girvan on an uphill gradient to just north of the old station site.Maybole is around nine miles away and Girvan two miles.

Opened to serve the Killochan Castle estate and surrounding population in 1860 by the Maybole and Girvan Railway it closed in 1951. before the era of the Beeching cuts.

Killochan Colliery (aka Bargany Pit), Craigie No. 1 Section, Parish of Dailly was still working up until the 1970s and had a coal washing plant that was used to treat coal from the other pits in the valley.

Grangeston Halt railway station was located nearby as a private facility used by staff from the ICI munitions plant at Grangeston during WWII and closed in 1965.

It was originally on a single track section that was later doubled and had two platforms with a signal box, goods yards with a loading dock and a goods shed.The dwelling house was a two-storeyed English Arts and Crafts structure with a very attractive single-storeyed glass conservatory-like waiting rooms section. Like Cassillis railway station that also served a castle and country estate, the main building was rebuilt circa 1900.

A quarry once lay nearby and a narrow gauge railway crossed the line bringing stone into the Killochan goods yard for loading into standard gauge goods trucks. In 1965 the signal box was still present as was the second platform and the old toilet block. A 1970 photograph shows the station substantially intact despite closure in 1951 although only a single platform remains. By 2011 the station buildings had been much altered with the signal box gone, toilet block demolished, waiting room converted into a garage and the substantial chimneys removed from the two storey station house.

Killochan Castle is one of the finest fortified houses in the South of Scotland and was held by the Cathcart family from around 1586 until 1954. In Victorian times it was a busy and populated estate and provided significant freight and passenger traffic for this rural station.