St Boswells Loco

[owen]

Can anyone tell where this pic was taken and is there any more like this.
Can anyone tell me whos in the pic .
This pic is about 118 years old.
Thanks
Owen

[52D]

Hi originally NBR locos were named after places close to where they worked, but the names were removed around 1884 by the then chief Mechanical Engineer Mathew Holmes.
The locomotive illustrated looks like a Dugald Drummond Abbotsford class 4-4-0 introduced in 1877 for the principal express workings on the Waverley route of the NBR between Edinburgh and Carlisle.
So the photograph is pre 1884 and judging by the number of men, the countryside and the state of the track i would hazard a guess of the location as being near or outside one of the smaller NBR sheds on the waverley route maybe St Boswells or Hawick. It looks like an area for fire dropping.
The loco St Boswells carried the NBR number 490 and was later classed as a D28/29 By the LNER. For further information please go to the link below.

www.lner.info/locos/D/d27d28.shtml

[52D]

on further examination i rescind my comments on a possibile fire dropping area. It is evident that the men are engaged in renewing track my other comments stand. As the loco is named St Boswells i guess that the loco is either on the Waverley route or local branch lines such as the Kelso line the Border counties route or the Peebles line.

[CVR1865]

if the track looks like being renewed then perhaps it is actually being first laid?

[52D]

Well thought i wonder if the men are laying one of the branchlines off the Waverly route either to Tweedmouth via Kelso or to Reston via Duns.