Early schemes The earliest railways in Scotland were waggonways, intended for horse drawn operation, in most cases from a colliery or other mineral source, to a waterway for onward transport. Notable early lines were the
Kilmarnock and Troon Railway of 1812 and the
Monkland and Kirkintilloch Railway of 1826, the first of the "coal railways" of the Monklands area. The
Garnkirk and Glasgow Railway (G&GR) was authorised in the same year, and it opened in 1831. There were unfulfilled ideas of connecting
Glasgow and
Edinburgh as early as 1824 and when the G&GR got its authorising act, the
Garnkirk and Glasgow Railway Act 1826 (
7 Geo. 4. c. ciii), there were thoughts of extending from Broomielaw in Glasgow over the G&GR to Edinburgh and Leith; the connection to sea-going shipping was paramount. In 1830 the railway engineers
Thomas Grainger and
John Miller were commissioned to survey for such a line. There was to be a tunnel under the centre of Glasgow but there was furious opposition to this; it was so strong that the proposal failed. The
Liverpool and Manchester Railway had opened in 1830, and was more successful than its promoters expected, showing that an intercity railway could be commercially successful. The pressure to connect the two great cities of central Scotland continued, and in the second half of the 1830s money became freely available, and investors, chiefly in England (many of them shareholders in the Liverpool and Manchester line), promoted a viable railway.
E&GR authorised The Edinburgh and Glasgow Railway was authorised by the '''''' (
1 & 2 Vict. c. lviii) on 4 July. The bill had been in committee for 37 days. The first contract was let in late 1838, to William Aiton and his company. Bad weather delayed the progress of the work but on New Years Day 1842 the public were invited to walk through the tunnel at Glasgow Queen Street. Policeman were stationed to prevent the entrance of disorderly persons. The Glasgow terminal was designed by James Carswell. The line was engineered as a main line, and substantial earthworks, viaducts and tunnels were incorporated into the route, forming an almost perfectly level route, apart from the climb out of the Glasgow terminal. The original intention was to descend gently into Glasgow, crossing over the
Forth and Clyde Canal, but opposition from the canal company obliged the E&GR to be brought under it instead, resulting in a steep descent at 1 in 41 from Cowlairs mostly in tunnel. Cowlairs tunnel is in length. There were other major structures on the line: the Garngaber Viaduct carried the line over Bothlin Burn and the
Monkland and Kirkintilloch Railway; Castlecary Viaduct consists of 8 arches and is long. The Falkirk (or Callendar) tunnel is long. Approaching Linlithgow the
Avon Viaduct consists of 23 arches; Winchburgh tunnel is in length; and the
Almond Valley Viaduct has 36 arches; it cost £130,000 to build. The permanent way consisted of malleable iron rails on stone blocks; the form of construction was already obsolete; "half logs" were used in some places. It was Scotland's first trunk line. Goods traffic started in March 1842. There were four passenger trains each way daily; and there were ten intermediate stations and the journey took 150 minutes. Two passenger trains ran each way on Sundays, "timed at hours which would not interfere with the ordinary period of divine service". This provoked great controversy as the observance of the Sabbath was held as sacred by much of Scottish public opinion at the time. Edinburgh time was observed, 4.5 minutes later than Glasgow time. The intermediate stations were at Corstorphine (later Saughton), Gogar, Ratho, Winchburgh, Linlithgow, Polmont, Falkirk, Castlecary, Croy, Kirkintilloch (later Lenzie) and Bishopbriggs. There was a ticket platform at Cowlairs. named Samson and Hercules, were introduced in 1844, but they were found to be damaging to the track, and the powerful exhaust caused vibrations in the roof, leading to leakage of the canal water. The banking engines were sent to the Monklands area in 1848, and wire rope haulage with the stationary engine was used instead. The boilers were replaced in 1862 – 1863 by seven Cornish boilers. Hamilton Ellis described the operation after the banking engines were first discontinued: Rails continued to break under the heavy banking engines and the stationary engine was brought out of retirement, and Newall’s untwisted cable substituted for the earlier hemp rope. The cable was 2.78 miles long and weighed 24 tons. Leaving Glasgow the train moved slowly to the tunnel mouth and there a chain secured to a hemp messenger rope, lashed in turn to the cable, was linked to the front drawhook [which was inverted]. The locomotive then set back slightly to make the messenger rope taut. This of course brought the main cable up against the underside of the engine, where a pulley wheel was mounted to engage with it and prevent it from fouling. With the locomotive thus secured to the cable, the driver, advised by the foreman cable attendant, gave a whistle signal, and the Queen Street signalman then telegraphed the Cowlairs box. If and when the line was clear, the Cowlairs signalman sounded three blasts on a horn, piped down through the tunnel and the winding engine was started. As the cable began to pull, simultaneously the driver started his locomotive and the train, thus double powered, swept solemnly up to Cowlairs. South of the Cowlairs engine house, the gradient eased off and the locomotive, working hard, would gain on the slowing cable, so that the messenger automatically dropped off the inverted drawhook and left the train entirely to the power of its own engine. A boardwalk about 100 yards long laid in the four foot way prevented the dropped messenger with its chain getting into mischief in the few moments before the winding engine stopped. For the downward journey the procedure was simple. On arrival at Cowlairs the train engine would be detached and run round its carriages, after it had shunted on to the head end three or more special brake wagons. Tickets were meanwhile collected. The engine would then propel the train gently over the top of the incline, whence it trundled down into the city with all the brakes squealing.
Monkland Railways The
coal railways of the Monkland district had been very successful early entrants in the field of conveying minerals to market, but as technological pioneers they were now at a disadvantage, with their primitive track and a track gauge that was now non-standard, preventing through running. They worked together in a loose collaboration. In 1844 the E&GR agreed a takeover with them, and from the first day of 1846 took on the operation of their lines, while Parliamentary permission for formal takeover was sought. On 3 July 1846 this was refused by Parliament, and the E&GR withdrew from the informal arrangement at the end of 1846. At this time the
Caledonian Railway was planning its route linking Glasgow, and the Caledonian concluded an agreement to take over the
Garnkirk and Glasgow Railway and the
Wishaw and Coltness Railway. The other coal railways aligned themselves away from the Caledonian Railway's influence, and in 1848 they merged to form the
Monkland Railways. there to connect with the Newcastle and Berwick Railway (later to form the
York, Newcastle and Berwick Railway). The NBR had started operations on 22 June 1846. By then the North British Railway had commenced their passenger service, on 17 June. For a time the two stations were separate, and with separate goods stations in addition. The primitive passenger accommodation at first was only temporary: from 3 August 1846 E&GR passengers were accommodated at a single platform partly under the northernmost of the Waverley Bridge's three wide arches." On 17 May 1847 the permanent joint passenger station came into use. The North British Railway referred to it simply as "Edinburgh" station, or "North Bridge", although it was also known as the General station. and the
Scottish Central Railway, and the Forth and Clyde Canal, the Union Canal and the
Monkland Canal. (The canals still carried substantial mineral traffic.) That group of companies worked as a voluntary combination for a few months under Bryan Padgett Gregson, an experienced manager of canals and railways from Lancashire. In late 1846 the Lancashire shareholders, insensitive to the fear of Caledonian
hegemony and reluctant to spend money acquiring canals, which they considered to be beaten competitors, overturned the arrangement, and Gregson was dismissed. (In 1849 the E&GR purchased the Union Canal for £209,000, still against the opposition of the Lancashire shareholders.) On 1 April 1848 the Caledonian Railway opened its line between Edinburgh and Glasgow. It was difficult in operational terms, but in July the Caledonian accelerated its passenger trains and added new fast services, and cheap fares. The E&GR responded with fare reductions, and a desperate price war soon developed. It could not continue and in September fares were increased by mutual agreement. Although the line connected a number of pits, it was dependent on a long haul to Coatbridge, handing over to the W&C railway at Morningside, and the line was not commercially successful. Raising money to continue eastwards to a more lucrative destination proved beyond the resources of the company. In 1847 the company decided that it could not continue independently, and the negotiated the sale of their line to the Edinburgh and Glasgow Railway. A legal prohibition on amalgamation of companies which had not expended half of their authorised capital delayed the process until 1849, when the
Edinburgh and Glasgow Railway (Wilsontown, Morningside and Coltness Railway Transfer) Act 1849 (
12 & 13 Vict. c. lxxii) was obtained, authorising the sale to the E&GR, which took full effect in 1850. In the hiatus period, and with the authorisation of the
Edinburgh and Bathgate Railway, the WM&CR enlisted E&GR financial help and set about extending from Longridge to Bathgate. The E&GR wished to exclude the Caledonian Railway from the area. The line opened to goods and mineral traffic early in 1850, and passenger traffic started in May 1850, after the takeover by the E&GR.
Stirling and Dunfermline Railway The
Stirling and Dunfermline Railway was authorised by the
Stirling and Dunfermline Railway Act 1846 (
9 & 10 Vict. c. ccii) on 16 July 1846. As well as linking the named places, there were to be branches to Alloa and Tillicoultry. The line opened between Dunfermline and Alloa on 28 August 1850, and Alloa Harbour and Tillicoultry were connected on 3 June 1851. The section from Alloa to Stirling was completed on 1 July 1852. At Dunfermline, the line made an end-on connection with the Edinburgh, Perth and Dundee Railway, giving onward connection to Fife. ] The company was vested in the Edinburgh and Glasgow Railway by the
Edinburgh and Glasgow and Stirling and Dunfermline Railways Act 1858 (
21 & 22 Vict. c. lxiv) of 28 June 1858.
The Campsie branch On 5 July 1848 the E&GR opened the Campsie branch. This left the E&GR main line east of Lenzie, and dropped down into the Kelvin Valley, running through Kirkintilloch, where it had a station separate from the Monkland and Kirkintilloch Railway station. The line continued from there through Milton of Campsie to Lennoxtown. This resulted in North British Railway transfer traffic to Glasgow being charged very high rates, and Hodgson, Chairman of the NBR, determined to get control of the E&GR. In 1864 the
Great Northern Railway and the
North Eastern Railway suggested to Hodgson, that the three companies should jointly lease the E&GR, forming an East Coast route into Glasgow, but it proved impossible to negotiate a deal. Hodgson prepared a scheme for a
Glasgow and North British Railway, which would build an entirely new route to Glasgow. Alarmed, the E&GR immediately reduced its rates to Glasgow, which broke its agreement with the Caledonian. On 23 June 1864 the E&GR announced a change of policy and an end to the Thirty Years Agreement, and "an agreement of a permanent nature with the North British Company". The E&GR had long been harbouring a plan to absorb the Monkland Railways, which had an extensive network in central Scotland mainly devoted to mineral sites. The proposal came to fruition on 31 July 1865, when the Monkland Railways were absorbed by the E&GR. The Locomotive Superintendent of the NBR made a tour of inspection of E&GR and Monkland Railways depots and found the rolling stock in an extremely poor state, badly under-reported in official returns. The E&GR Cowlairs workshops were far superior to the NBR St Margarets, and they became the principal depot for the combined company.
Developments under the North British Now part of the North British Railway network, the E&GR line formed the trunk of the westward routes from Edinburgh. In 1872 a siding connection was provided near Lenzie for the construction of a mental hospital, at the time known as
Woodilee Lunatic Asylum. The hospital itself opened in 1875. The siding was removed in 1963 after a period of disuse. The Glasgow Queen Street station was very cramped, and included a goods station. More branch services were terminating at the station, and in 1877 the North British Railway opened up the mouth of the tunnel and widened the station throat, and provided six platforms. (It had been built with a single arrival platform and a single departure platform, with three carriage stabling sidings between, and a goods station on the east side next to North Hanover Street.) The ascent of the Cowlairs incline continued to be a difficulty, and electric traction was proposed, but not proceeded with. From August 1909 steam traction with banking assistance handled everything; the cable haulage was discontinued. Traffic to Stirling and beyond had used the route to Polmont and Carmuirs, joining the
Scottish Central Railway there, although the
Edinburgh and Northern Railway route, involving two ferry crossings was available from 1847, and the NBR opened a route from Ratho to South Queensferry in 1866, enabling a crossing of the Firth of Forth by ferry there. The northwards routes were greatly simplified when the
Forth Bridge was opened in 1890. A more direct route from Edinburgh to Dalmeny, at the south end of the bridge, was provided as part of the work; it left the E&GR main line at Saughton. The intervening terrain between Edinburgh and Glasgow, served largely by the former Monkland Railways lines, but also by several mineral branches of the E&GR main line, was mostly given over to coal and iron pits, and ironworks. While some extensions were constructed to serve new or expanded pits, the best times for the industries in the area had gone, and decline over several decades set in. As the industrial sites closed, so did the railway connections. In greater Glasgow, the North British Railway very gradually built up a suburban passenger network, and served industrial sites on the north bank of the River Clyde west of Glasgow. The great improvement took place when Airdrie and Coatbridge were connected directly to Glasgow in 1870. These developments put increasing pressure on the Queen Street terminus, which was still very cramped. This was finally resolved when the
Glasgow City and District Railway was opened in 1896, allowing trains to run through Glasgow without entering a terminus station.
The twentieth century In 1902 a branch line was opened to Corstorphine, serving a growing residential suburb of Edinburgh. At the "grouping" of the railways, the North British Railway was a constituent of the new
London and North Eastern Railway (LNER) in 1923, following the
Railways Act 1921. In turn the LNER was nationalised as part of British Railways, Scottish Region in 1948. The direct line through Falkirk High was closed between 9 March 1980 and 8 December 1980 for tunnel repairs and the installation of slab track; for the time being through trains ran via Grahamston.
Dieselisation From 7 January 1957, Swindon-built inter-city diesel multiple units were introduced; running in six car formations, they operated the fast trains between Edinburgh and Glasgow. The new trains were a considerable success, and the unit formation avoided the engine run-round and disposal moves at each end of the journey, which was especially useful at Glasgow because of the tunnel constraint. The journey time was 55 minutes. Although the new trains were a considerable advance over what had gone before, by the end of the 1960s they were perceived as inadequate, and trials were undertaken with a class 37 locomotive in push and pull mode; but this was not considered successful and pairs of class 27 locomotives were used instead, with mark II coaches. One locomotive was marshalled at each end of the train. This system was introduced from 3 May 1971, and reduced the journey time to 43 minutes. After some years the class 27 locomotives were suffering persistent failures due to the heavy use, and new arrangements were put in hand from 1979 using single class 47/7 locomotives, specially converted from class 47/4. A driving trailer (DBSO) was used at the remote end of the train, and control was effected through the lighting circuits. The maximum speed was 95 mph (153 km/h). The full service on this arrangement started in December 1980. The next generation was class 158 diesel multiple units, which were introduced in 1990, making the journey in 50 minutes with three stops.
The present day The original main line between Edinburgh and Glasgow is in operation, with a frequent fast passenger train service between the two cities. The route via Grahamston is also in use. The Edinburgh and Bathgate line was closed to passengers in 1956 but has reopened as part of an electrified route between Edinburgh and Glasgow via Bathgate and Airdrie. The other sections of line built by the Edinburgh and Glasgow Railway have closed. ==Early trial of electric traction==