No sooner had we had our latest photographic look at progress on the Tram to Newhaven project in Edinburgh then there is another update as the first tracks have now been laid on Leith Walk – the second main location to see the track installed following on from that close to Ocean Terminal on Ocean Way.
We saw in our last update that the track was ready for installation on Leith Walk, being piled up alongside the prepared base, and in the week commencing 7th December the work progressed to the stage of actually putting the track into place. This is the section of Leith Walk between Pilrig Street and the site of the future Balfour Street tramstop.
This is immediately to the north of the former Edinburgh/Leith boundary (it was 100 years ago last month that the Port of Leith was subsumed by the City of Edinburgh). This was the scene of the so-called “Pilrig muddle” where passengers had to change trams between 1899 and 1922 as a result of the inability of the two Corporations to agree on the future development of the systems. Thus the horse tramways in Edinburgh (operated from 1894 by the Edinburgh & District Tramways Company) were replaced by cable trams from 1899 (not directly run by Edinburgh Corporation until 1919) while in Leith, the horse cars of Edinburgh Street Tramways Company (who were the original operator in both towns) were eventually taken over by Leith Corporation Tramways in 1904 and electrified the following year. It wasn’t until 1922 that through electric trams would run after Edinburgh Corporation took over the Leith Corporation system in 1920.
A close-up view of the first track laid on Leith Walk.
Looking northeast down Leith Walk and with the installed track in the foreground the single southbound lane is also seen. Northbound traffic is currently diverted away from the area. (Both Photographs by Roy Calderwood, 8th December 2020)