Beattock Summit


Beattock Summit is a high point of the West Coast Main Line railway and of the A74 motorway as they cross between Dumfries and Galloway and South Lanarkshire in south west Scotland.

Railway history

The highest point on the Caledonian Railway Main Line north of the border, it is located 52 miles south of Glasgow Central and 349 miles north of London Euston stations. The height of the summit is 1,033 feet above sea level. The signboard by the rail track records the elevation as. The summit is the watershed between the River Clyde to the north and Evan Water, a tributary of the River Annan to the south.
The summit was the location of a private halt from 1900 to around 1926.
Steam locomotives frequently required banking assistance in getting their heavy trains up the incline, particularly in the northbound direction, which had steeper gradients. There was an engine shed at Beattock which had banking locomotives on standby twenty-four hours per day to minimise train delays.
The severity of the climb to the summit is referenced in W. H. Auden's poem Night Mail, written in 1936 for the G.P.O. Film Unit's celebrated production of the same name.
Electric locomotives, as far back as the Class 86, as well as today's Avanti West Coast services, climb the gradient without assistance.