THE CALEDONIAN RAILWAY
The Caledonian Railway at Brechin is a small railway with big ambitions. Chris Gilson ventured across the border to talk to its chairman, Jon Gill, and found out more.
There’s no denying that the Caledonian Railway is a line with ideas. To the uninitiated, it’s a beautiful – albeit windswept – route stretching across four miles of open Scottish countryside between Bridge of Dun near Montrose and Brechin. Built by the Aberdeen Railway in 1848 and later to fall under the auspices of the Scottish North Eastern Railway and Caledonian Railway, its latter days of steam under British Railways would see its metals graced by ‘A4s’, ‘V2s’ and a host of indigenous Scottish designs. Now, it is mainly known for its impressive diesel fleet, although it has a modest and successful steam contingent, of more later. It also has well-founded plans for an extension to essentially double its length, a healthy volunteer workforce with no paid staff, and an income that has substantially grown through the Covid period, in contrast with many other heritage railways.
At the helm is Jon Gill, who has steered the line since 2019. Born in Kent, but most certainly naturalised north of the border, it’s clear that the railway is in his blood, with him first volunteering on the line at the tender age of 11. As he says: “In the past there was much more flexibility around what you could and couldn’t do alone, which allowed me to get on with lots of things. I, like most others at the time, really mucked in and did everything, so there wasn’t a question of ‘can you or can’t you do that’, it was just that you had to do it. I joked when I left university that I probably learnt more here hands-on than I did at university. I got the theoretical grounding there, and the combination of the two has been really useful to me over the years. Working at the railway is a good exposure.
“As a youngster, I basically spent every waking hour I could here and quite a lot of my sleeping hours as well. I learnt how to stoke up a brake van stove so that it would stay alight for as much of the night as possible, so you didn’t freeze. I slept in coaches and various other places just so I could stay here and keep working. When I was at home, I was generally fixing stuff in my dad’s garage. I wa
