Each week we take you on a trip back in time with a selection of photographs taken from DC Thomson’s vast archives.
This week the focus is on Kerr’s Miniature Railway which was a fixture in Arbroath for 85 years before finally running out of steam in 2020.
Tens of thousands of summer visitors travelled on the small-gauge track in its heyday as full-size counterparts thundered along the adjacent east coast main line.
Planned and built by Matthew Kerr Sr, the little railway was an instant hit with the public, carrying 11,350 passengers in the first season in 1935.
He lifted up all the track and re-laid it following that early success.
His more ambitious plan at the West Links included longer platforms, more sidings, turntables, miniature signal box and a new booking office.
His efforts were instantly rewarded by the passenger total jumping as word spread throughout Scotland and beyond.
Here he is in a classic shot from the early years.
Our next image is from June 1960 and shows Douglas and Jennifer Payne from Perth getting a close-up view of the new engine at the railway during a family holiday.
This picture shows the miniature bus and fire engine filled with young passengers on the West Links in the summer of 1962.
Donald Scally, Fiona Howgat, Andrew and Donald Marshall watch Matthew Kerr carry out some routine maintenance at the railway in August 1973.
Eleanor Andrews is pictured alongside the iconic miniature bus which was part of a transport display at the SMT car show room in Dundee’s East Dock Street in 1980.
The railway passed to Matthew Kerr Jr in 1977 and he is pictured on the right with Graeme Whiteside driving the train on the left during this scene from April 1990.
Matthew Kerr Jr died in 2006 and the railway was taken on by his wife Jill and son John, who were aided by an enthusiastic band of volunteers.
Since the miniature railway opened in 1935, the Kerr family welcomed more than two million visitors but numbers dwindled to just 3,500 people in 2019.
Scotland’s oldest miniature railway closed for good in October 2020 and the final trains were packed with children and nostalgic adults. All that remain now are the memories of spending summer on the West Links with a ride along the half-mile track which would be followed by a bus or fire engine ride with one of the Kerr family at the wheel.
