Probably from the moment it was completed and opened, until the time it ceased use and was fenced off, the viaduct was used by pedestrians as well as by trains. A figure can just be made out in the above postcard image on top of the bridge to the right hand side. The trains were infrequent and ran to a well-known timetable, so people could be reasonably confident that they wouldn't encounter rail traffic while crossing the bridge. Plus, for those living on the Drummochy/Lundin Links side of the viaduct, it was much handier to leave the train at Largo station and cross the viaduct than to get off at Lundin Links station, which was a greater distance away.
It was such common practice that even children and pram-pushing mothers would routinely use the viaduct as a footpath. However, with such use over a very long period of time, inevitably there was the odd accident. One particularly serious and sad incident relates to a local butcher. According to the Courier of 20 February 1895.....
"On the arrival of the 3.25 train at Largo on Monday from Thornton, where he had been to attend the cattle market, Mr David Simpson, butcher, Lundin Mill, crossed the railway viaduct which spans the end of Largo Harbour, with the intention of walking along the railway line to Lundin Mill. Immediately after getting past where the parapet of the bridge ends, Mr Simpson stumbled, it is supposed, against the wires in connection with the signalling apparatus, rolled down a portion of the embankment, and fell over the wing wall of the bridge, a distance of 24 feet, on to the hard frozen footpath below."
The article notes that Dr Palm was quickly on the scene to find that Mr Simpson had a seriously fractured skull. He was carried home but never regained consciousness and passed away during that night, around ten hours after his fall. The 49-year-old butcher left behind a wife and eight children, most of whom were still of school age.
It was such common practice that even children and pram-pushing mothers would routinely use the viaduct as a footpath. However, with such use over a very long period of time, inevitably there was the odd accident. One particularly serious and sad incident relates to a local butcher. According to the Courier of 20 February 1895.....
"On the arrival of the 3.25 train at Largo on Monday from Thornton, where he had been to attend the cattle market, Mr David Simpson, butcher, Lundin Mill, crossed the railway viaduct which spans the end of Largo Harbour, with the intention of walking along the railway line to Lundin Mill. Immediately after getting past where the parapet of the bridge ends, Mr Simpson stumbled, it is supposed, against the wires in connection with the signalling apparatus, rolled down a portion of the embankment, and fell over the wing wall of the bridge, a distance of 24 feet, on to the hard frozen footpath below."
The article notes that Dr Palm was quickly on the scene to find that Mr Simpson had a seriously fractured skull. He was carried home but never regained consciousness and passed away during that night, around ten hours after his fall. The 49-year-old butcher left behind a wife and eight children, most of whom were still of school age.
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