eventually combine. The Aberdeen Railway operated in a loose arrangement with the SMJR and the SCR, with a common pool of locomotives and rolling stock, but in 1856 that arrangement came to an end, when the Aberdeen Railway and the Scottish Midland Junction Railway merged to form the Scottish North Eastern Railway. For the time being the Scottish Central Railway went its own way. The A&FR lease transferred to the SNER. The new company concentrated its traffic from Aberdeen to the south via Forfar, and the line into Arbroath fell into disuse. Its track was lifted in 1857. However animosity between the SNER and the SCR later resulted in traffic being diverted via Arbroath, requiring reinstatement of the Friockheim line; it was relaid as a single line, opening on 1 April 1863. The 1836 Act authorising the A&FR had specified that the line to Arbroath docks should have gates at the several road level crossings in Arbroath; this had never been done and following several accidents, and the Commissioners of Police requested in May 1856 that the gates be provided. The SNER negotiated with them, and at length it was agreed that gates would be provided at Millgate Street only. Lengthy legalistic prevarication followed, legal opinion indicating among other things that the Act had required bridges, and therefore no-one had the right to demand gates at a level crossing. It appears the matter was eventually dropped. In 1865 and 1866 respectively the SCR and the SNER were further absorbed by the Caledonian Railway, forming a continuous line under single ownership from Carlisle to Aberdeen. The Caledonian control ended the reason for diverting trains away from the Forfar route, and the Friockheim curve was closed again, on 1 November 1867. Parliament was uncomfortable with the formation of large railway companies, and in granting the amalgamation Bill, it gave running powers over much of the northern part of the system to the North British Railway. The NBR pressed the point further, and obtained authorisation in 1871 to build a line from a junction at St Vigeans, a little north of Arbroath, to Kinnaber Junction via Montrose, giving it access to Aberdeen over the former Aberdeen Railway route. The construction of the Tay Bridge was proceeding in the 1870s, and the NBR applied for joint ownership (with the Caledonian Railway) of the Dundee and Arbroath line; and for running powers over the former