Distance markers and an elegy for the Great North of Scotland Railway

Cast iron distance markers, usually mounted on lengths of old rail and originally painted white, were situated every quarter of a mile along the ‘down’ side of the track.(Left when heading towards Fraserburgh or Peterhead)  These were a requirement of The Railways Clauses Consolidation Act of 1845 which stipulated that:  

"The company shall cause the length of the railway to be measured, and milestones, posts, or other conspicuous objects to be set up and maintained along the whole line thereof, at the distance of one quarter of a mile from each other, with numbers or marks inscribed thereon denoting such distances." 

The distinctive markers were of a standard rectangular design showing the distance with the distance in whole miles from Aberdeen embossed on them in large figures, quarter miles were indicated by large raised dots.The markers were positioned so that the mileage could be read by travellers in  both directions. Initially passengers were charged by the mile for their journey so the markers enabled them to check that they had been charged the correct fare. The distinctive markers which remain are thought to date from the 1920s, unfortunately, they make highly desirable house number signs and many of them have been removed or damaged.

32 and a half
  miles from Aberdeen resting against a tree trunk near Brucklay Bridge

Thirty Three and three quarters

Better preserved than many and showing the white paint

Thirty six and a quarter miles, situated by  rowan tree between Mintlaw and Longside

Badly damaged forty five and three quarter miles between Philorth Halt and Fraserburgh Golf club

This lyrical passage is  an extract from a longer article by E.N.C. Haywood about distance markers by which appeared in the GRNSRA Review for May 1970:

The familiar shapes of the Great North mileposts have been there now for some fifty years; repainted at intervals, but otherwise uncared for. A few,situated on station platforms, have had the company of people; but the vast majority have spent a solitary existence, out in the lonely countryside, blistered by the summer sun, buried by the winter snow; rained on, whitened by the post, some bleached: by the salt

from the sea. All classes and conditions of mankind have passed by them, from royalty to Peterhead prisoners. Fish, granite, cattle and everything else have rumbled past, day by day, year after year. They have been darkened by the hot, sooty, sweetish breath from countless passing steam locomotives - f o r a long time their own homely Great North engines, and then a gradually increasing invasion of alien types. But eventually the end came even for the steam engine; and t o so many of the mileposts themselves the end has also come, foretold by the change in the rails beside them - once shining then brown with the final rust of all.

Now many miles of the old Great North are empty and dead, where once the rails gleamed and t h e drifting smoke proclaimed the trains. If the line were straight there would always be a milepost in sight; for the clear, distinctive GNS pattern was so easily seen that before the post you had passed had faded from view, the next one ahead was already visible - you could see them both at once. But now most of them have gone; the old track beds are just fading scars through the lonely fields , where the wind whispers amidst the new grass that has sprung up, and the shadows of the clouds pass silently over the emptiness; as silently, perhaps, as the ghosts of those who built, worked and travelled over these memorable lines.