Udny Station

Udny Station is a small village in Aberdeenshire, Scotland which is 5 miles east of Oldmeldrum and 5 miles south west of Ellon. It is part of the parish of Udny along with another small settlement, Udny Green.

Udny Station, was a station on the Formartine and Buchan line to Fraserburgh. The tracks were removed in the early 80s, just as the oil boom was getting into full swing.

There was a goods yard with railway sidings at the station. The area where a number of newer houses have been built is where the sidings were. Walking along the track of the old platform, one of the original lighting units (minus the glass) is still visible mounted on a concrete post. About a mile south of the station, on the old track, walkers pass old level crossing gates which are still fitted showing the orange round plate.

Udny Station has a number of unknown interesting features, these are :-

On the Eastern edge of the village whilst heading for Cultercullen, just as you leave the village is a field with a fenced off area showing air vents. This is actually a Royal Observer Corps station. Through an access hatch, there are rooms under here used during the Cold War by the ROC. There are a number of these stations spread across the country, most were taken out of service in 2001. The rooms house some communications equipment, however the Udny Station one has been almost stripped of everything inside.

http://www.subbrit.org.uk/cgi-bin/webdata_roc.pl?fid=987412630&query=pagenum%3D2%26cgifunction%3DSearch%26Pic1%3D*.jpg&cgifunction=form

At the railway bridge beside Tillycorthie house, heading for Aberdeen you go round some tight turns. As you take a sharp right after the railway bridge, there is a small triangle area of trees with a duck pond. This duck pond is actually a bomb crater from a German aircraft in WW2. Further up the hill a 2nd bomb exploded, and further up from there a 3rd bomb didn't explode. This UXB was recovered and made safe in WW2.

A number of the farms in the area used prisoners of war as labour, these were supplied from the POW camp in Pitmedden. The gate is still visible. If you drive from Pitmedden on the Old Meldrum road, just as you're leaving Pitmedden on the right is a black metal gate with barbed wire on it. That's the entrance to the camp.

ources

* [http://www.geo.ed.ac.uk/scotgaz/towns/townfirst5334.html Udny Station] in the "Gazetteer for Scotland".