1939-45?

"I think the photo is wartime (1939-45), or immediately post-war.

I have an idea that the LNER shortened the lettering on wagons and locos to NE around this time (as an economy measure?!) If so, the station itself would be closed to passengers by then. I presume it was still used as a goods office.

The station is on the pier, the photographer is about where the yacht club is now. The building in the haze in the distance still stands, I think, albeit very derelict."

[Patrick Hutton: November 8, 2004]

pre-1930?

"Granton Station, appears much too tidy to have been after 1930.

We as a family often had a day out to Burntisland beach, walking from Newhaven to Granton then a ferry trip on the old William Muir.  Tickets were obtained from the station which in the mid to late thirties was much more run down than the photograph indicates.

The actual station entrance was through a large gate in the high wall seen behind the platform, the Lighthouse Pier which was used by the 'Pharos' was at the southern end of the platform.

Although not easy to see in the photo the old steam crane can be picked out, this was used, along with two others on the West Pier, to load bunker coal on the large number of steam trawlers then operating from the port.

The building immediately beyond had a weighbridge.  Coal wagons were moved through an arch using a wire and electric capstan.  A before and after weight kept the record of coal loaded.  The big crane in question was removed soon after the conveyor was built at the end of the middle pier – pre war, circa 1938."

[Walter Hume, Isle of Wight, England: February  3, 2005]

1923-25?  or 1926-40?

"I've just found the Granton Station photo.  The L.M.S. wagon proves it was at earliest 1923,  and yes, the good condition and tidiness suggest pre-closure in 1925.

However the absence of platform lighting and seating support the post-closure idea and the building's continued use by staff.  It would certainly be pre-1940.

I remember it only as derelict,  and the name board would have been removed with the threat of enemy landings.  In the late 1940s(?) it burned down.

Coal Wagons

The N.E. wagons could be from the coal-dominated North Eastern Railway, a pre-1923 constituent of the L.N.E.R.,  but Mr Hutton's (L) N E (R) suggestion also appeals.

A coal wagon's diagonal line indicated that it had an end-tipping door.  The steam ship-loading crane  (visible by tilting my laptop screen)  was astride a rail track and lifted a ground-level deck with rails carrying the laden wagon;  slewed,  and tilted the whole thing to discharge the coal.  I feel sure it was there until after the war.

The other ship-loader at the northwest tip of Middle Pier was more efficient and more interesting.  A rake of weighed wagons was indexed along by a between-rails winch pawl pushing on the wagon's axle. 

Uncoupled, it rolled onto a turntable which rotated about 45 degrees then hinged up to discharge the coal into a below-ground hopper from where a belt conveyor continuously carried it up and out over the ship, to be dropped down two hanging chutes into the bunkers. 

The wagon turntable was re-lowered, rotated back into line, then tipped a little to nudge the wagon northward.  It rolled down through a long dip in the track and its momentum carried it up the opposite slope. 

Then it rolled back southward and spring points in  the dip diverted it onto the outbound track where another winching pawl caught it and pushed it and preceding empties forward together ready for re-coupling and departure."

Tasmania

Watching all this with boyish mechanical interest, little did I guess that thirty years later I would be engineer of a private railway and ship-loader in faraway Tasmania!

Douglas Beath, Tasmania:  February 1, 2006