fitted to the Waverley Route at a cost of £23,957 in order to equip the line for Midland trains. The block telegraph was still being installed when the first through services traversed the line. Upon completion of the Midland's line, the Waverley Route attained main line status. The opening of the Forth Bridge in 1890 led to an increase in traffic carried over the Midland's line to stations north of Carlisle. Receipts in June, July, August and September of that year were £6,809 higher than in the corresponding months of the previous year. Closure Background Throughout its lifetime, the Waverley Route only achieved moderate success. Even during its best years, returns from the line's intermediate stations were meagre. In 1920, the eleven stations between and on the sparsely populated area between Hawick and Carlisle raised only £28,152 in receipts, with Longtown contributing the bulk of this amount. The line was challenging to work due to its severe gradients requiring costly double-heading, and difficult to maintain particularly in winter. As a result, right from the first year of its existence, there were calls from within the NBR to close the line; it was considered a millstone by its successive operators. Too far east of the Scottish industrial heartland in the Clyde Valley, and traversing thinly-populated countryside for much of the way, the Waverley Route lived off cross-border passenger services and traffic generated by the wool textile industries in Galashiels, Selkirk and Hawick. As a passenger artery, the effectiveness of the route as a competitor to Edinburgh-London traffic was hampered by its slower journey times compared with the East Coast and West Coast lines, requiring the line's operators to compensate by laying on superior rolling stock. In 1910, the West Coast and East Coast lines achieved a journey time of eight hours and fifteen minutes over their respective distances of and , whereas the Midland's expresses via the Waverley Route covered the in eight hours and forty minutes. Those who travelled on the line often did so because of the pleasant journey and spectacular scenery north of Leeds, and holiday workings were timed to allow passengers to take in the landscape during daylight hours. In terms of passenger numbers, a reasonable load was carried from Edinburgh to Leeds and Sheffield, but beyond there, patronage was lighter. A survey conducted in July 1963 on a peak Saturday Edinburgh-London service showed that fewer than