Key to table colour coding
 

Section of line or station Closed

Section of line open to Freight

Section of line or station open to passengers

Although the Monkland and Kirkintilloch is rightly regarded as the first railway in the district, the concept of the waggonway, using wooden rails had been an established practice in and around mines for many years.  One such waggonway was built in 1800 to transport coal from the Legbrannock Colliery to the Monkland Canal at Calderbank.  The route of this waggonway was featured on one of the early maps of the district, drawn up by Willian Forest in 1816 as can be seen below.

The Monkland and Kirkintilloch.

Opened: October 1826
Route: From Kirkintilloch Basin to Palacecraig Pit, with branches to Rosehall Pit and Kipps
Original Gauge: 4'-6"
Date of Gauge change to standard gauge: Completed 27th July 1847
Subsequent Ownership.
To Monklands Railway Company: 14th August 1848
To North British Railway: 31st July 1865
To London and North Eastern Railway: 1st January 1923
To British Railways: 1st January 1948

From the "HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF THE NAVIGABLE RIVERS, CANALS, AND RAILWAYS, OF GREAT BRITAIN. AS A REFERENCE TO NICHOLS, PRIESTLEY & WALKER'S NEW MAP OF INLAND NAVIGATION, DERIVED FROM ORIGINAL AND PARLIAMENTARY DOCUMENTS IN THE POSSESSION OF JOSEPH PRIESTLEY, Esq. 

"THIS useful work was undertaken in the year 1824, under the authority of 'An Act for making a Railway from Palace Craig, in the parish of Old Monkland, in the county of Lanark, to the Forth and Clyde Canal, near Kirkintilloch, in the county of Dumbarton.' The design of the projectors was to open a communication between the iron works at Palace Craig, near Old Monkland, and the Forth and Clyde Canal, for the purpose of exporting the minerals and manufactures of that place and vicinity, and it has fully answered the end proposed. It traverses a distance of more than ten miles, in a northerly direction from Monkland to Kirkintilloch. Taking the surface water of the Forth and Clyde Canal as a level, there is a rise, from the basin where the railway communicates with that work, to its termination at Palace Craig, of 133 feet 11 inches*. In its way it passes by Howes, at which place there is a branch of three quarters of a mile in length, with a rise, from the aforesaid level, of 161 feet 3 inches to Kipps' Colliery. It connects with the Garnkirk and Glasgow Railway, and with the Ballochney Railway, and also with the Wishaw and Coltness Railway; besides connecting the Monkland Canal with the above railroads and the Forth and Clyde Canal, thus giving facility to the export of immense quantities of coal, ironstone and limestone, with which this district abounds.

Mr. Thomas Grainger was the engineer employed, whose estimate for the whole, including the basin at the Forth and Clyde Canal of one hundred yards square, was £24,953, ls. 5d.; the necessary funds for which were raised by shares of £50 each."

*My calculation from the NB gradient profile makes it 136ft - not far out!!

Status:

Map	Section of Route or Passenger Station		Opened	Closed		Notes
	from	To		Freight	Passenger
	Kirkintilloch Basin	Chryston (Auchengeich Colliery)	10/1826	02/04/1966	c1850	For further details of this section, including the spurs to the Edinburgh and Glasgow Railway see the
	Chryston (Auchengeich Colliery)	Bedlay Junction	10/1826	05/11/1967	c1850	had been OOU since 26th February 1967
	Bedlay Junction	Bedlay Colliery	c1905	11/12/1981	n/a
	Bedlay Junction	Garnqueen South Junction	10/1826	11/12/ 1981	c 1850	Line reduced to single track on 5th November 1967
	Garnqueen South Junction	Gartsherrie East Junction	10/1826	----	----	Open to Passenger and Freight
	Gartsherrie		10/1826		28/10/1940
	Gartsherrie East Junction	Gunnie Yard	10/1826	07/11/1967*	c 1850	*Official date.  Gartsherrie East box was destroyed by fire 30/01/1967 so the spur was most likely OOU from that date
	Gunnie Yard	Sunnyside Junction	10/1826*	----	c1850	*Revised formation opened 1846.  Open to freight (Mothballed)
	Sunnyside Junction	Whifflet East Junction	10/1826*	----	10/09/1951	*Revised formation (elevated section at the fountain) opened 1872.  Open to freight, occasionally used as diversionary route for passenger services
	Sunnyside Junction	Greenside Junction	10/1826	----	----	Open to passenger services, (No current freight traffic)
	Greenside Junction	Kipps Junction (start of Ballochney Railway)	10/1826	18/08/1971*	01/05/1930	*A short length of track was left in place for some time after this closure date from Greenside Junction to Cameron Street Level Crossing.
	Whifflet East Junction	Palacecraig Colliery	10/1826	see note	n/a	Track was still shown on the 1954 revision of the O.S. map but had been lifted by the 1955 revision
	Whifflet (M&K)		1831	----	29/06/1895	Replaced by NBR Station further to the north. (See "Whifflet - Early Development" page for further details
	Whifflet (N.B)		29/06/1895	----	22/09/1930
	Whifflet East Junction	Whifflet South Junction	10/1826	----	10/09/1951	Open to freight, occasionally used as diversionary route for passenger services
	Whifflet East Junction	Rosehall Colliery	1837	1879(?)	n/a	It is assumed that the branch would have closed as soon as the alternative route via the Rosehall branch of the Glasgow Bothwell Hamilton & Coatbridge Railway was opened.

The Rosehall branch, constructed in 1837, left the M&K "main" line just to the south of the Whifflet Street overbridge. The total length of the branch was 56 chains (1127 metres) before forming an end-on junction with the private lines of the Rosehall colliery.  The branch was leased to Messers Addie & Millar, owners of the Rosehall Coalfield and Langloan Iron Works, for a period of 30 years commencing 1838. They used their own locomotive and therefore the branch was effectively a private line between Whifflet and Rosehall with Addie & Millar having running powers between Whifflet and Langloan.  The line tunneled under the high ground between Whifflet and Rosehall to Shawhead pit, with the northern tunnel mouth being close to where the present day road junction is at Whifflet. The tunnel was 800 meters long and the southern portal can be discerned on the map just to the south of Coathill Hospital.  It is surprising that with all the railway development in the area that this should be one of only two tunnels in the district.

The branch closed around 1879 when the Glasgow Bothwell Hamilton & Coatbridge Railway was completed and the alternative route from Whifflet was established.   There were good reasons to use the alternative route, operationally the line had the inconvenience of a flat crossing over the Glasgow Garnkirk and Coatbridge, created when that line built it's Whifflet extension, followed by a climb at 1 in 60 through a single bore tunnel which would not have been a pleasant experience for drivers and firemen.  Inevitably there would also have been heavier maintenance costs compared with a surface railway (particularly in a heavily mined district).  The tunnel was used as an air raid shelter during World War II, then closed up again in 1945. The northern end of the tunnel was filled in during foundation consolidation work when the A725 was converted to dual carriageway in the 1960's.

The section between Kirkintilloch and Glenboig is a cycle path, the route being complete with the exception of where the M73 was built over the track bed. (When the M73 was built this part of the route was still in use to the exchange sidings for Bedlay Pit, the junction for which faced Kirkintilloch. A new spur was constructed to allow direct access to the Colliery from Coatbridge). From Garnqueen South Junction to Gartsherrie the line is still in use today, and it is remarkable that the 52 chains of ex Monkland and Kirkintilloch metals remained part of the North British and L.N.E.R.empires, despite being a part of the Caledonian main line from Carlisle to Stirling and Aberdeen right up until Nationalisation in 1948.  Also still intact, but presently mothballed, is the section between Gunnie Yard and Sunnyside Junction, but the route has been severed north of Gunnie yard. Note however that the present route between Gartsherrie and Whifflet is not the original 1826 formation, as the line was diverted in the vicinity of Baird's Gartsherrie Iron Works to allow for expansion of the works, and in  Central Coatbridge the route was altered twice in 1872 by the the North British Railway to avoid crossing the main Glasgow to Airdrie road on the level.  The map below shows the main deviations. (See also the comparison maps on the  Sunnyside page

	The view from Calder Street looking south over the sidings serving the former R.B Tennant Meadowside Works, now owned by Sheffield Rollmasters.   These tracks are now severed from the rest of the rail network.  The Glasgow Bothwell Hamilton and Coatbridge Railway followed an arc towards the bridge in the middle distance.  The bridge Abutment in the foreground is an interesting survivor of an old branch which left the original formation of the M&K to reach an  ironstone quarry.  The bridge was built to carry the branch over the G.B.H&C in 1877/78, but by  1899 the branch was lifted.  The maps below show the  course of the branch and the subsequent use of the bridge as an access route to the Calder Iron works.  The gray shadowed area shows the relative position of  the  Meadowside Works building.  The maps also show the M&K as having another deviation from the original formation with the original tracks left as a yard serving Calder Iron Works
(Image on left produced from the www.old.maps.co.uk service with permission of Landmark Information Group Ltd. and Ordnance Survey).  Image on right © crown copyright