The branch line from Haddington to Longniddry was built in 1846.
According to some authorities it was constructed to "placate the
people of Haddington" who were enraged that the county town had
been bypassed by the mainline railway which skirts the coast north
of the town. The Haddington branch line was eventually closed in
1969.
Some of the line inside the town boundary was built on and what
remains of the station and platform is within an industrial site.
The line outside the town running towards Longniddry was purchased
by East Lothian Council and turned into a recreational path in
1987. You can find another cache on the path called
“About HalfWay” – which is a fair description of where it
is!
The co-ordinates will take you to what is still called “Station
Road”, although there is no longer a functioning railway station in
Haddington. In front of you is the former entrance to the station:
an imposing set of red sandstone pillars which hold lamp brackets
and a decorative brick retaining wall. The wall supported the
embankment on which the line lay at a higher elevation than the
road. You are facing what is literally “the end of the line”: the
buffers of the Haddington terminus and its goods yard would have
been along the line of the wall.
At this point, count the number of pillars. Let that number be
A. Also count the number of courses of white brick in the
highest part of retaining wall. Let that number be B. Look
at the bus shelter. There is a telephone number on a small plate:
041 CDE 2626. The telephone number is followed by 4 scribed
digits: F77G.
Now work out the final co-ordinates. The numbers you have
collected should total 34.
The cache is at:
N55 AC.(E+F)CA W002 B(D+F).(D-E)G(B+A)
To get there, go a little east and so rise in the world.
Depending on the time of day you may need a lot of guile to
retrieve and rehide the cache!