Talk:Gailes railway station

Station purpose

Does anyone know what purpose this station served? The only thing of significance that seems to have been near the site was the old Army camp, yet it is some distance away from the line. Douglasnicol 16:20, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

Western Gailes Golf Club is right next door (in the photo of the station near the back of Ayrshire and Renfrewshire's Lost Railways you can see the golf club carpark right next to the platform) so I would imagine golfers used the station, although the station does predate that golf club by about 50 years! Looking at the area via Virtual Earth there seems to be a strange network of roads just to the slight east of the station site that go nowhere, its possible there were some kind of industrial buildings there at some point? --Dreamer84 19:42, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

Had a look at the 1860 OS map on Old Maps and it seems that when the station was opened it really was in the middle of nowhere, with North Gailes farm a short distance to the north and South Gailes to the south. The station isn't featured on the map, I can only guess this is because it was opened after the surveying was done. There's still a level crossing over the line here for access to the golf club isn't there? --Dreamer84 22:18, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

Yes, there is a level crossing, though I got the impression that the station was nearer the old camp. Unless there had been plans to build there which really came to nothing. Both Bogside stations had nothing near them apart from the racecourse either. Douglasnicol 01:04, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

After looking at the 1926 OS map for the area, it seems the old TA camp was originally right next door to the station on the east side, occupying the now abandoned road network. I thought the camp was much further to the east next to the main road, so I guess it was moved at some point? I'm not really all that familar with the camp there, my knowledge limits to the fact that the RAF once had some kind of base there, and today there's a bunch of houses in the middle of nowhere that's marked as "Dundonald Camp". I guess the original camp and the golf course is what the station served in its hey-day? --Dreamer84 03:04, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

I get the feeling there have been various Army camps. The buildings that still exist were some of the old base housing. The two large sheds were MT sheds, and until recently next to that was the remains of a rifle range. The large open field between that bit and the housing used to be the site of a lot of wooden barracks buildings that were used by Cunninghame District Council for some years until Cunninghame House was built in Irvine. The RAF Stations comment is correct. There were in fact two RAF stations. The site of the old Humepipe factory near the Shewalton cemetary was the site of RAF Fullarton, a ground control intercept station during WWII, RAF Gailes, was the site of a radar station that was taken over by the BAA for some years. The newer entrance to the new golf facilities is near the old RAF Gailes entrance. If you're interested, RAF Gailes has a Wiki entry. Douglasnicol 13:54, 11 December 2006 (UTC)