Aberdeen Anguish (1)

due to major technological difficulties

this blog appeared later than usual and

may be more disjointed!

the original vanished from fbb's screen last

evening, possibly due to a lack of

concentration during the Andy Murray match

at Wimbledon - OR as a result of electrical

storms which switched the telly off at the same time!

Apologies for any loss of quality!

No, that's Aberdeen Anguish NOT Aberdeen Angus!

For this blog, fbb is taking his readers to the suburb of Bucksburn, to the north west of Aberdeen. the name comes from the Bucks Burn, a small tributary of the River Don which, together with the Dee disgorges its waters into the seas off Aberdeen.

The former village was clustered around the junction of the road to Oldmeldrum and Banff (A947) and the A96 to Huntley, Elgin and on to Inverness.

Aberdeen International Airport once took its name from Dyce, a village on ther A947, but its main entrance is now on the A96. The Airport and its splurge of industrial units, sits in the "V" between the two main roads.

Because of its link to the Airport and routes north, the A96 has been widened and dualled which has led to significant demolition in the village of Bucksburn. This shop and the buildings behind it ...

... have been razed to the ground ...

... to make way for the onslaught of the motor vehicle on this former village. Only the building next to the ornate street lamp (old picture) and new street lamp (new picture) remains to give us a clue to the matching location.

Just around the corner from the above snaps was a branch of the Aberdeen Co-op.

The building remains largely unchanged, but is now home to separate businesses.

On the other side of the junction from the Co-op was the entrance to the Argosy Cinema and dance hall.

The entrance was via a gap between two shops ...

... a gap which is still there ...

... but the hall/auditorium behind ...

... no longer exists; no more flicks and no more boogie-ing. 

Bucksburn Fountain once stood at this important village junction ...

... but the lamp post and the old garage behind have succumbed to modernity.

If we take a look back towards the junction we will see an Edinburgh Corporation tram that had just turned into Oldmeldrum Road.

The tram-less location  is much the same today with the distinctive gable of the co-op (left) enforces the location.

The tram was on the green route ...

... which ran beyond Bucksburn to Piries Paper mill at Stoneywooed.

Clearly this was a big employer, hence the trams.

The Paper Mill is still there under the ownership of Arjo Wiggins, but there is no sign of anything tram-related in the area. From the width of the junction with Stoneywood Terrace ...

... fbb suspects trams pulled in here - and workers were obliged to walk to the factory!

Elsewhere at Bucksburn, Oldmeldrum Road is no longer a through route ...

...with the A 947 departing at a super roundabout further west.

What of the railway?

Our reader may have notices on an old map shown above that there was a string of three railway stations close together.

Nothing much remains of any of these. When the line was singled some while ago, the platfroms at Bucksburn remained ...

... but with the more recent re-doubling, even this remnant of the past has gone. Work was in progress on adding back the second track when Google Earth's satellite whizzed overhead ...

The A96 cuts the bottom left hand corner of the aerial view; the platforms are where the work is in progress and the goods yard is not filled with blocks of flats.

Trains continue to run through to Inverness, of course, with a stop a little further north at the fairly "basic" Dyce station, offering a bus link to the airport ...

... and on to Inverness.

Local trains half hourly (approx!) run from Inverurie via the new station at Kintore,  then Dyce and Aberdeen, with Inverness trains pottering through every so often spoiling the pattern!

So why, you may ask, is fbb interested in Bucksburn?

A tweet popped into the old man's in box a few days ago which included a reference to NESTRANS, which might mean North Eastern Scotland Transport.

fbb wondered whether there might therefore be an outbreak of co-ordinated trabnsport infromation in the Aberdeen area?

What do you think?

More tomorrow

 Next Bucksburn blog : Wednesday 30th June