Edinburgh Bridge #10 West Gorgie

A bridge that has footie connotations but unlike my previous footie bridge you go under this bridge to go to the games. Ever since we changed our venue for meeting up before games and going for a couple of beers after we have walked underneath. Sometimes we walk back under as happy as Larry, some times as sad as a dog with no home, sometimes just meh! Today walking back it was a feeling of a job nearly completed but just a bit short. (What the ref/linesman saw was a mystery to us, but not really surprising).

The bridge is still used by the railway companies but only for freight. It was an integral part of the Edinburgh Suburban and Southside Junction Railway which opened in 1884 and although it is a bridge now in its first incarnation the railway ran under the road, at least as the maps to 1904 show. The Suburban railway was a circular route that, more or less still exists running from Waverley – Haymarket – Gorgie – Criglockhart – Morningside – Blackford - Newington – Duddingston - Portonbelllo – Piershill Abbeyhill and back to Waverley. The passenger service ceased in 1964 although some folk think re-opening it up would relieve the city of a some of the traffic congestion, who knows as it is extremely unlikely it will happen.