IT WAS built at the turn of the 19th century to help thousands of workers from Edinburgh's Princes Street get to the city's vast gasworks.
Now, more than 60 years after it last saw use, the neglected old railway station on the city's waterfront is set to be brought back into use – as a new hotel or bar-restaurant complex.
The station dates to 1902 when it was built to help ferry c
oal and other goods to the new gasworks – which opened three years earlier – and to ensure workmen could travel to the site from the city centre free of charge.
Now it is hoped the station house could become Granton's answer to Leith's Malmaison Hotel, which was a seaman's mission dating back to 1883.
National Grid, one of three developers regenerating huge swathes of the waterfront, is spending £250,000 transforming the building on Waterfront Broadway, close to a supermarket and Telford College.
It will then go on the market, with agents handling the plot at the Forthquarter scheme saying the revived building is expected to become a major "gateway" to the new-look waterfront.
The former station house, which still has its old platforms intact, was built to serve the huge gasworks built after others in the city centre, Leith and Portobello reached capacity.
The Granton site eventually boasted three holders and was the biggest single producer of gas in Scotland. Gas production continued on the site until 1987.
A spokeswoman for National Grid said: "A railway spur was built off the then Caledonian Line into the gasworks in 1902 to allow coal and other goods to be brought to the gasworks and a station was built so that workmen could board a train at Princes Street and travel straight to their place of employment free of charge."
She added: "The station house, which closed in 1942 and has been used for storage space for the last few decades, is a reminder of the area's industrial heritage, and a physical representation of the historic link between the city centre and Granton.
"We're having work done to the old station house at the moment to renew its roof and carry out various internal repairs to ensure that this B-listed building is properly protected and kept in good order until it is ready to be brought back to life and can once again take its place at the heart of the community in Granton."
Stewart Taylor, director at agents CBRE, said: "The plot within which the former station building sits forms the gateway to the Forthquarter. For the building to be returned to its former glory, we need to identify an economically viable use that will release the investment that is necessary. We want to attract uses to the waterfront that will serve the local community."
The Forthquarter scheme involves the creation of 800 homes, a 20-acre park, a primary school, Telford College and the Morrisons supermarket.
