Edinburgh Waverley railway station

Edinburgh Waverley (also known simply as Edinburgh; Scottish Gaelic: Waverley Dhùn Èideann) is the principal railway station serving Edinburgh, Scotland. It is the second-busiest station in Scotland, after Glasgow Central. The station serves as the northern terminus of the East Coast Main Line, 393 miles 13 chains (393.16 miles; 632.7 kilometres) from London King's Cross, although some trains operated by London North Eastern Railway continue to other Scottish destinations beyond Edinburgh.

History

Origins

Edinburgh's Old Town, perched on a steep-sided sloping ridge, was bounded on the north by a valley in which the Nor Loch had been formed. In the 1750s overcrowding led to proposals to link across this valley to allow development to the north. The "noxious lake" was to be narrowed into "a canal of running water", with a bridge formed across the east end of the loch adjacent to the physic garden. This link was built from 1766 as the North Bridge and at the same time plans for the New Town began development to the north, with Princes Street to get unobstructed views south over sloping gardens and the proposed canal. The loch was drained as work on the bridge proceeded.

In 1770, a coachbuilder began work on properties feued at the corner between the bridge and Princes Street, and feuers on the other side of the street strongly objected to this construction blocking their views to the south. A series of court cases ended with the decision that the buildings nearing completion could stay, immediately to the west of that some workshops would be allowed below the level of Princes Street, and further west a park would be "kept and preserved in perpetuity as pleasure ground" in what became Princes Street Gardens.