A
Short History of the Railways of Coatbridge &
Airdrie
(The
Monklands) |
Introduction
The towns of Airdrie and Coatbridge
(collectively known as the Monklands), played a vital role in the early
development of the railway system of Scotland, the Monkland &
Kirkintilloch and Glasgow, Garnkirk & Coatbridge Railway companies being
two of the first railways in the country. It is generally recognized
that the G.G. & C was the first railway to be run as a "proper" railway,
rather than the older companies which were little more than horse drawn
waggonways. Despite this pivotal position the area has never had it's history
told in one comprehensive volume, and this web page only scratches the
surface! Probably the best historical description of the area was by the
late John Thomas in the chapter aptly titled "The Cradle of Scottish
Railways" in his book "A Regional History of the Railways of Great Britain,
Vol.6 - Scotland, The Lowlands and Borders", and for further information on the
history of this area, I recommend that you read this book and the other
publications listed in the appendix.
I became aware
of the local network as a schoolboy in the 1960's and I can just remember the
last few years of steam in the area. Whifflet yard and Coatbridge Central
became my favoured spotting locations and I started to take an interest in the
local history after walking some of the disused branch lines and becoming
intrigued by where they went to and why. This page started out as just
another part of "Lowland
Locomotives" as a photographic gallery, but as I started to do some
background research for the various locations the snowball started to roll as
more and more information came to light. As fresh sources of information
were found to solve some puzzles, further enigmas were uncovered! If you know of
any glaring errors in the text please advise me of corrections that are
required, or if you have additional information I would appreciate your help.
You will see a few entries with question marks! Please do not hesitate to
contact me on james@jhowie.f9.co.uk if you have any comments - bad or good!
The area has been transformed in the last 30 years, with the spread of
electrification and the disappearance of mineral branches, freight sidings and
that once common structure - the signal box. In general, with the
exception of container traffic, freight workings which originate in the towns
have gone, while passenger traffic has increased to the point where Coatbridge
must be one of the best served towns in the U.K., in terms of the number of
passenger stations per head of population.
Note on Closure Dates
Many of the closure dates were originally based on the appendix to "Scottish
Branch Lines" by C.J. Gammell, which seemed to be comprehensive and reasonably
accurate. However having seen the information contained in the "Register
of Scottish Signalboxes" by Forbes Alexander and E.S. Nichol, there is some
doubt over the actual closure dates. It would appear that the dates
in "Scottish Branch Lines" are based on the dates when regular freight traffic
was withdrawn over a particular route and not when the line was officially
designated as closed. A good example of this is the closure date of the
line between Whifflet East Junction and Bothwell. The date of withdrawal of
freight traffic over the route is given as the 10th of July 1955 but the line
remained intact and out of use until the 6th of June 1961 - six years
later! Similar anomalies exist at Rawyards, where freight traffic is
recorded as having been withdrawn on the 1st of May 1956, yet the signalbox was
not officially closed until the 4th of August 1958.
Figure 1: Schematic map of lines
in the Monkland District
The History Pages
Note: All the linked pages will open in new windows
so that you can refer back to the map above, simply close the linked window when
you are finished with it and move on tho the next!
Strategic Locations
Photographs of the area are particularly scarce, although I have listed a
number of books which have the odd picture of locations in the district.
If there is anyone reading this page who may have any old photographs of the
area which they would like to see on the Net, I would love to here from them. I
also have a substantial amount of maps, photographs and other data which I am
willing to share with any other likeminded researcher. Since this page was
first published I have received donations, particularly from Jim Watson, Edward
Kitchen and
Geoff Cryer to whom I am very grateful. The amount of information, maps and photographs has mushroomed, so this page is now divided up into separate
sections. All scanned data from ordnance survey maps are from editions
published before 1952. © Crown Copyright exists.
List of Featured Pages
Have you been
directed straight to this page by a search engine or link? Why not
have a look at some of my other pages, including photographic galleries of
Mossend and Glasgow, The
index page is here.
Visit these Local
Monklands Information Pages
