THE SCOTSMAN MONDAY 3 APRIL 1950
HOLIDAYS IN RAIL COACHES
Survivors of a pre-war force of over 400, seventeen coaches of British Railways are parked in sidings near the holiday-spots of Southern England with nowhere to go but with a purpose in their immobility. They are “camping coaches”, rolling stock fitted with sleeping accommodation and cooking facilities (including cutlery and pots) which are still proving popular with holidaymakers in the summer months.
At the moment the fitting of further coaches as holiday accommodation is at a standstill – the manufacturers of rolling stock must meet sterner requirements. Gradually, the 439 coaches which were scattered all over Britain in 1938 have disappeared, and there is no likelihood of the present meagre allocation being improved.
Still proving popular, also, are the camping apartments – ten old stations, now disused, which have been converted into apartments for about six people. The old L.N.E.R. system started this scheme some five years before the war, and at the moment the regions which absorbed the system are the only ones to offer holidays at a railway station. Five stations are in Scotland – Aberlady and Gullane, in East Lothian, and Culross, Torryburn, and Cairneyhill, in Fifeshire.
Cairneyhill People and History 