Private company

Monkland and Kirkintilloch Railway

Railway in East Dunbartonshire, Scotland (1826–1982)

The Monkland and Kirkintilloch Railway (M&KR) was an early mineral railway running from a colliery at Monklands to the Forth and Clyde Canal at Kirkintilloch, Scotland. It was the first railway to use a rail ferry, the first public railway in Scotland, and the first in Scotland to use locomotive power successfully, and it had a great influence on the successful development of the Lanarkshire iron industry. It opened in 1826.² Wikipedia text CC BY-SA 4.0

Last updated Oct 20, 2026.

Overview

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The story

Formation of the railway

In the first decades of the 19th century, the City of Glasgow had a large and increasing requirement for coal, for domestic and industrial use, and after the cessation of coal extraction from local pits, this was chiefly supplied from the Lanarkshire coal field, centred near Airdrie, in Monkland. There was also some extraction of iron ore in the area.

The Monkland Canal had opened in 1794, and provided a considerable stimulus to the coalpits in Monkland, and early iron workings were encouraged also. However, before the era of a proper road network, the canal had a virtual monopoly of transport, and it set its prices accordingly; so successful was its exploitation of the situation that it "for many years yielded a dividend of Cent. per cent... arising solely on its tolls on coal".

A group of interested businessmen promoted the Monkland and Kirkintilloch Railway to link the coal pits and iron works to the Forth and Clyde Canal at Kirkintilloch. If coal and minerals were transshipped there, they could reach not only Glasgow, escaping the monopoly of the Monkland Canal, but also Edinburgh.

The scheme obtained authority on 17 May 1824 by the Monkland and Kirkintilloch Railway Act 1824 (5 Geo. 4. c. xlix), with share capital of £32,000 and powers to raise a further £10,000 by additional shares or by borrowing. Construction started by contract the following month.

The engineer for the scheme was Thomas Grainger, in his first large undertaking; he had previously been chiefly engaged in road schemes. When he became engaged on the construction of the railway, he took as his assistant John Miller, and a year later the two men formed a partnership, Grainger & Miller, which was to be heavily involved in Scottish railway schemes.

It was built to the track gauge of 4 ft 6 in (1,372 mm), and as other 'coal railways' opened up in the area in connection with the line, this track gauge became established for their use. It is not known why Grainger chose this gauge. He must have been aware of the huge success of the Stockton and Darlington Railway, built to a gauge of 4 ft 8½ in. The convention for specifying gauge had not settled down at this early date; as late as 1845 Captain Coddington of the Railway Inspectorate was describing another railway and wrote: "Gauge of rails 4 ft 8½ in from centre of rail to centre of rail, and 4 feet 6 inches from inside to inside of rail." and it is not impossible that Grainger intended to imitate the Stockton line but mistook the parameter. Whatever the reason, he inadvertently caused huge disadvantage to the M&KR and several other coal railways in Central Scotland.

Early days

A trial of a railway coach took place on 8 July 1828; it was reported in The Scotsman newspaper:

Railway Coach. The first railway coach constructed in Scotland for the conveyance of passengers, made a trial journey in the neighbourhood of Airdrie on Tuesday. It is dragged by one horse, and is to ply on the Kirkintilloch Railway, in carrying passengers to boats on the canal. It is meant to carry 24 passengers, but started in high style with no less than forty, within and without.

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Tomlinson infers that a regular passenger service started on that day, and later authors have followed him, but it is not certain that the trial immediately led to a regular run. If and when it did, it must have been from Leaend (on the Ballochney Railway) to Kirkintilloch. In any case, it seems to have been very short-lived.

When the Garnkirk and Glasgow Railway opened its line, it operated a service between Leaend and its Townhead terminus in Glasgow, running over part of the Ballochney Railway and the M&KRR Kipps branch, and calling at The Howes in Coatbridge. There were four trains each way daily. As the M&KR operated like a toll road at this time, there was nothing surprising about another business, or in this case another railway company, operating passenger trains over the M&KR line.

At first, from 1 June 1831 this was a horse-drawn service, but a few weeks later the G&GR put a locomotive, called St Rollox on, running as far as Gartsherrie. The M&KR would not allow the locomotive over their line, so horse traction took over from there to Leaend. This service continued until 1843. Bradshaw's Guide shows, in a section headed Garnkirk and Glasgow Railway, passenger trains from Glasgow to Airdrie, &c, at 7½ and 10½ a.m., 1½ and 4½ p.m. Airdrie to Glasgow, &c, 8¾ and 11¾ a.m., 2¾ and 5¾ p.m. Fares, Glasgow and Airdrie 1s. 0d.-- 6d.

In June 1831 there was a horse-drawn service from Calder Iron Works (on the M&KR) to Gartsherrie, connecting there with the Leaend to Glasgow service, and in the summer of 1832 the G&GR advertised a service from Cairnhill Bridge (near the Calder Iron Works) to Glasgow, and also from "Clarkston": the Clarkston Wester Moffat location on the Ballochney Railway, via Kipps:

A Railway Carriage starts from Clarkston and Cairnhill Bridge every Wednesday at a quarter to 8 o'clock A.M. and returns with the evening train from the Railway Depot.

Another advertisement dated 15 October 1832 announced that the Clarkston and Cairnhill carriages were "now discontinued".

From Wikipedia’s article on Monkland and Kirkintilloch Railway, shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.³

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Summarising passenger stations during M&KR days is difficult, and many sources are contradictory. In the earliest days horse drawn trains probably stopped wherever someone wanted to board or alight, without formal station premises.

On 1 June 1831 a passenger service was run from Airdrie Leaend to the Howes (in Coatbridge) and on to Gargill. This was later extended to Glasgow Townhead over the Garnkirk and Glasgow Railway, operated in collaboration with that line. There was a short lived connecting service about this time from Calder Iron Works to Gartsherrie. In the summer of 1832 weekly services were advertised from Cairnhill Bridge and Clarkston to connect with the Airdire to Glasgow trains.

From late 1839 there was service from Leaend to the Howes, Chryston and Kirkintilloch Basin, but this probably ceased in 1840 or soon after.

There was a passenger service from Airdrie Hallcraig Street to Kirkintilloch (the exchange station on the E&GR) from 26 December 1844. There was a connecting service from Kirkintilloch to Kirkintilloch Basin until 23 March 1846. The main passenger service was suspended on 26 July 1847 while the track gauge was altered. On 28 July 1847 the service resumed, now running through to Glasgow Queen Street. On 1 December 1847 the service was diverted to Glasgow over the Garnkirk line from Gartsherrie, but on 10 December 1849 it was reverted to Queen Street. A connecting service was run southwards to Cairnhill Bridge, but this was shortened back to terminate at Whifflat (now called Whifflet) on 1 December 1850. The whole passenger service was suspended on 10 December 1851. A passenger service was reinstated from Glasgow Buchanan Street to Airdrie Hallcraig Street in August 1852.

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Taking the stations from north to south, they were as follows.

Kirkintilloch Basin, open from 1828 at the northern terminus by the canal; closed as a passenger station by 23 March 1846; there was a nearby North British Railway station, opened in 1848, and which continued until 1964;

Woodley; the Edinburgh and Glasgow Railway had a station called Kirkintilloch, by the modern Easter Garngaber Road; the M&KR opened Woodley station a little to the north on its line in 1844; connecting passengers would have had a 100 yards walk; but in the same year the M&KR constructed a spur to exchange sidings alongside the E&GR at Garngaber and there was passenger exchange there also; (the M&KR and the E&GR had different track gauges at this date); the station was also referred to as Kirkintilloch and also Kirkintilloch Junction; it closed on 26 July 1847;

Bridgend, at Gartferry Road, opened about 1839 and closed 10 December 1851;

Bedlay, opened 1849 (i.e. after the end of the M&KR's independent existence) and closed again the same year;

Garnqueen, probably at Main Street, opened 10 December 1849; closed on 10 December 1851;

Gartsherrie, at the junction with the G&GR, also known as Gargill; opened 1 June 1831; and closed 10 December 1851; adjacent Caledonian station continued 1940;

The Howes: probably located at the site of Sunnyside Junction; it opened in 1831 and closed in 1851; also known as South End;

Coatbridge: opened 10 December 1849; closed 10 December 1851, on the M&KR line alongside the present-day Coatbridge Central station (which is on the parallel GG&CR line); when the M&KR main line was rebuilt at a higher level in North British Railway days (to cross over Bank Street and eliminate the level crossing), a station at the same location was opened in 1871 on the new high level line;

Whifflat; (nowadays spelt Whifflet); opened 10 December 1849; closed 10 December 1851; the NBR later (1871) opened a station at this location);

Calder Iron Works; opened June 1831; soon closed;

Cairnhill Bridge; opened summer 1832; closed by mid October 1832; reopened by Monklands Railway 10 December 1849; closed 1 January 1850.

The location of the early Coatbridge "Howes" station is especially difficult to determine, and it is not shown on any available mapping; when the M&KR opened, Coatbridge was not yet an established community. At times it was called "The Howes", or just "Howes". Cobb places it at Kipps, but this must be wrong. Martin says that there was a stationary engine in 1836 for the accommodation of the traffic coming from the Wishaw Railway, and quotes accounts for the purchase of winding apparatus and ropes. This must have been to rope-haul trains coming from the south up to what became Sunnyside Junction, from the level crossing at Bank Street. There is a "Howes Basin" immediately south-west of the Sunnyside Junction location on the 1864 Ordnance Survey Map. As trains to Leaend stopped at The Howes, it must have been at the junction where the M&KR main line and the Kipps branch diverged.