This had a considerable effect on the volume of the trade, and by 1864 Bremner wrote (using the spelling "Carmylie"):  The Carmylie Quarries ... are the most extensive in the country. They are situated six miles from Arbroath in the parish of Carmylie which forms part of the south eastern breast of the Sidlaw Hills and consists chiefly of a series of high grounds scarcely approaching to hills with their intervening valleys running from south west to east The quarries belong to the Earl of Dalhousie and are at present leased by Messrs Duncan Falconer & Co They have been worked for several centuries all over the parish. Earlier farmers had quarried stone on their own land and carted the stone to Arbroath in their milk carts; but about 1804 the  quarries began to be worked on a more extensive scale. Windmills with movable wooden frames were erected for the purpose of pumping the water ... The machinery employed at that time consisted of a small single power crane which with care might be made to lift a stone a ton in weight. The present state of things at Carmylie is much different from what it was even twenty or thirty years ago. There are about 300 men in constant employment at the place. The machinery consists of eight planing machines, several cutting machines, eight saws for jointing pavement, one machine for making steps, coping and tabling; two polishing machines, six steam engines and from twelve to fourteen steam and other cranes ... The weight of stones sent away from the Carmylie Quarries daily is about 150 tons. A single line of railway extends from the quarries - the rails going to the bottom - to Elliot Junction near Arbroath a distance of five miles. The Carmylie Railway as it is called passes near the village of Arbirlot and skirts the beautiful Kelly Den which is of so much interest to the geologist. The line was constructed by the Earl of Dalhousie who sold it some years ago to the Caledonian Railway Company. It is used exclusively for the carriage of paving and other stones from the Carmylie Quarries. The Scottish North Eastern Railway (SNER) purchased the line from the Marquess of Dalhousie in 1865, under the terms of the "Scottish North-Eastern Railway Purchase of Carmyllie Railway Act, 1865". The SNER itself was absorbed by the Caledonian Railway on 10 August 1866. The Caledonian saw its future as the controller of a large railway network throughout much of Scotland, and it engaged in continuing absorptions of smaller concerns.