Cruden Bay Hotel Tramway
Owner Great North of Scotland Railway Company
Opened June 1899 (electric)
Operator Great North of Scotland Railway Company
Ownership transferred 1st January 1923 (to the London, North Eastern Railway Company, following its creation at the 1923 railway 'grouping' out of several constituent railway companies, one of them being the GNoSR)
Closed 31st October 1932 (passengers); 1941 (goods)
Length 0.66 miles
Gauge 3ft 6ins
Button description Title (‘Great North of Scotland Railway Company’) in garter, surrounding arms (shield divided into four, containing the three turrets of Aberdeen and the Scottish lions, surmounted by a lion(?) holding a sword and cross
Materials known Brass
Button Line reference [None]
Comment Photographs (see link) strongly suggest that the hotel's two tramcars were driven by non-uniformed groundsmen or other maintenance staff (the hotel had a world-renowned golf course). Although odd photographs show uniformed staff on the cars, it seems highly likely that these are in fact hotel staff (most likely porters) rather than individuals specifically tasked with conducting. It is possible that their uniforms bore standard GNoSR buttons (and later on LNER, the GNoSR's successor) though this is mere speculation, with no evidence whatsoever to support it.
The line connected the GNoSR-owned Cruden Bay Hotel with the eponymously named railway station, only a third of a mile distant. The well-to-do passengers were ferried to and from the hotel in what were perhaps the most sumptuously fitted out tramcars ever to grace the British Isles, both of which are preserved. Additionally, as the hotel acted as the GNoSR's company laundry, there was also significant goods traffic, which in fact outlasted the passenger service by some 9 years.