Private company

Ballochney Railway

Early railway line in Scotland

The Ballochney Railway was an early railway built near Airdrie, North Lanarkshire, Scotland. It was intended primarily to carry minerals from coal and ironstone pits, and stone quarries, in the area immediately north and east of Airdrie, to market, predominantly over the adjoining Monkland and Kirkintilloch Railway. Passengers were carried later.² Wikipedia text CC BY-SA 4.0

Last updated Oct 21, 2026.

Overview

1826Founded¹

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The Ballochney Railway was an early railway built near Airdrie, North Lanarkshire, Scotland.²

The story

Origins

In 1794 the Monkland Canal was completed, enabling the cheap transport of coal from the Monklands coalfields, south of Airdrie, to the households and industries of Glasgow. Advantageous at first, in time the canal was accused of exploiting its monopoly, and in 1824 the Monkland and Kirkintilloch Railway (M&KR) was opened, connecting the coalfields to the Forth and Clyde Canal at Kirkintilloch; onward conveyance by canal barge from there to Glasgow and Edinburgh was possible.

Ironstone was also smelted on a small scale at first, and from 1828 James Beaumont Neilson developed the hot blast process of iron smelting, and iron manufacture quickly became a huge industry, centred on Coatbridge, and the M&KR found itself at the centre of this massive industry, connected at first to all the local sources of coal and iron, and to the ironworks.

Coal was already extracted on a small scale in New Monkland, north and east of Airdrie and not directly accessible to the M&KR, and Thomas Grainger, the engineer of the M&KR, prepared a pamphlet proposing a railway from the New Monkland pits to connect with the M&KR. Construction was promised to be cheap, and the Ballochney Railway Act 1826 (7 Geo. 4. c. xlviii) of 5 May 1826 authorised the construction by a new company, the Ballochney Railway Company, with share capital of £18,425 and borrowing powers of £10,000.

The Ballochney Railway was to connect the pits to the M&KR at an end-on junction at Kipps, between Coatbridge and Airdrie. Money was scarce at the time, and the Forth and Clyde Canal company had agreed to subscribe for stock in February 1826. £3,300 was subscribed by English investors. The engineer was to be Grainger.

As was usual, the act laid down maximum toll rates for the railway: "For all Goods, Wares, Merchandize [sic], Coal and other Things: 3d per Ton, per Mile. For passing up or down any one of the Inclined Planes, or for any part of one, and for every Inclined Plane, 6d in addition."

Four contracts were let to construct the line from Kipps on the M&KR to "Airdrie Depot", i.e. the Leaend depot near Mosside Farm; from there to the top of the inclined plane at Rawyards; from there to Ballochney; and the Clarkston branch. A branch to Whiterigg and Stanrigg had been authorised in the Ballochney Railway Act 1826, but it was not made at this time.

Birkinshaw's patent malleable rails were ordered, as used on the M&KR. These had been a considerable technological advance on the cast iron rails used previously. The rails were 20 lb/yd (10 kg/m) and 15 feet (4.6 m) long, but there was a subsequent change to 28 lb/yd (14 kg/m) and 18 feet (5.5 m) long. This change may reflect improvements in manufacturing capability, which must have been at its technical limit at the time.

Subsequent history

The Monkland Railways were absorbed by the Edinburgh and Glasgow Railway by the Edinburgh and Glasgow and Monkland Railways Amalgamation Act 1865 (28 & 29 Vict. c. ccxvii) dated 5 July 1865, effective from 31 July 1865. A day later (on 1 August 1865) the Edinburgh and Glasgow Railway was absorbed into the North British Railway

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The location of active mineral extraction changed with time as pits became exhausted and new ones opened; the former Ballochney line continued to play a part in transporting minerals for the rest of the 19th century. The inclines on the Ballochney main line converted to locomotive operation, notwithstanding the very steep gradients. The passenger service over the Arbuckle route to the Slamannan line continued, and survived until 1930. By that time nearly all the pits and quarries had closed; the few remaining terminals closed progressively. The final part of the Ballochney system was the link from Kipps to the Hallcraig Street station, which remained open for goods traffic for Airdrie until closure in 1964. (A short stub at the western extremity may have remained open until 1971.

From Wikipedia’s article on Ballochney Railway, shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.³

Products and brands

Operation

The railway operated like a toll road; independent hauliers were permitted to place wagons on the line and haul them with their own horses to the destination, paying the company a toll for the facility. The track used edge rails, in which the wagon wheels had flanges for guidance (as opposed to a plateway, where plain wheels run on the flat of an L-shaped plate) so that the wagons were specific to railway use, and the company hired wagons to the hauliers. Whishaw recorded that there were 270 wagons in use on the system, each weighing about 24 cwt (1200 kg); the horses in use belonged to the coal proprietors, not the railway itself. Wagon rental to hauliers accounted for 8.4% of the company's revenue in the first seven years.

On 1 January 1830 the motive power owned by the company was entirely equine, consisting of Hector, Dick, Captin [sic], Darling, Prince, Diamond, Rattler, Brisk and Poney [sic]. (Independent traders had their own stable.) These horses worked through as far as Kirkintilloch on the M&KR system, but when the M&KR acquired locomotives in 1831 that railway worked trains over the Ballochney system as far as the foot of the inclines. In 1832 the company disposed of its horses, leaving all the horse power provision to independent hauliers.

Hill & Buchanan (1832) says that "A useful contrivance, [represented in an engraving in the original], has been here adopted for the ease of the animal in descending; instead of causing it to run behind the waggon, a carriage is made, in which the horse stands at his ease all the time the waggons are descending, and starts perfectly fresh to his task of drawing them back. This plan was first practised in North America on the Mauchunk Railway." The reference is to the Mauch Chunk Switchback Railway.

This system was still in use on 21 July 1841, when a child called Margaret McWakenshaw "unloosed a horse-carriage from a train of waggons" and was injured when then trying to prevent it running away down the line.

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In 1836 the maintenance of the track was put out to contract.

The company became relatively prosperous: even in 1831 it paid a dividend of 11⁄2%, and 4% the following year. In the period 1838 to 1842 it was paying dividends of 14–16%, and when the connecting Slamannan Railway was promoted, the Ballochney company was able to contribute half the capital for that line.

Writing in 1842, Whishaw states that the line had been chiefly worked by horses, but had then been prepared for locomotive operation on the upper section of about 2.5 miles (4.0 km); it had an inclination of 1 in 70. The preparation involved installing heavier rails, for the upper section now had 54 lb/yd (27 kg/m) rails compared with the original fishbelly rails of 20 to 28 lb/yd (10 to 14 kg/m). This upper section was double track. The gauge of the railway was 4 feet 6 inches (1,370 mm), with the interval between tracks 4 feet 10+1⁄2 inches (1,486 mm).

The observations regarding preparation for locomotive operation seem to be contradicted by Robertson (1983): "... in spite of the powers for steam haulage in the Ballochney act, the existence of the double plane in the centre of the line shows that it was planned for horses. When it was strengthened for the introduction of locomotives in 1840, the work was only done as far as the foot of the inclines. The upper Ballochney, and the Slamannan beyond it, were for the time being left for horses". In an endnote Robertson (1983) adds, "The Ballochney main lines inclines [sic] were worked by gravity; there was also one worked by a stationary steam engine on the Rochsoles branch. Though the Garnkirk & Glasgow ran trains over the Ballochney Railway to Airdrie, they had to use horse haulage on this section."

Robertson (1983) states that locomotives were introduced on the Ballochney line in 1840.

Rates for coal and lime were 3.75d for the first mile, 1.75d for the second, 1.25 for the third, fourth and fifth miles, 0.75d for the sixth and seventh, and 0.5d thereafter. For grain and manufactured textiles, the rate was 2.75d for the first mile, and 2.25d per mile thereafter.

Joint operation

The highly successful period from the opening came to and end in the first half of the 1840s, and all the "coal railways" began to think of economies, and of amalgamation. A first step was implemented on 29 March 1845 when the Ballochney Railway, the Slamannan Railway, and the Monkland and Kirkintilloch Railway operated together jointly, with co-ordinated tolls and a single management, referred to as the Monkland Mineral Lines. The Garnkirk and Glasgow Railway was no longer considered an ally.

Transfer of minerals to the network of the Edinburgh and Glasgow Railway (E&GR) system assumed increasing importance, and a connection was made in this period from the M&KR at Garngaber and from the Slamannan beyond Causewayend. As the track gauge was incompatible, trans-shipping was necessary at those places. A sale of the Monkland lines to the E&GR became an objective, and the E&GR had an expansionist policy, and the E&GR took over the working of the three Monkland Mineral Lines, and also the Wishaw and Coltness Railway from 1 January 1846.

The E&GR board now wanted to proceed with a takeover of the Mineral Lines, as well as the Wishaw and Coltness line, the Scottish Central Railway, and the Forth and Clyde Canal, the Union Canal, and the Monkland Canal. However E&GR shareholders considered proposed terms of the takeover to be far too generous to the Scottish proprietors. At the same time, Parliament was opposed to amalgamation unless this resulted in considerably reduced tolls to users. In July Parliament rejected the proposals.

The Monkland Mineral Lines presented a petition to Parliament in the following year, 1847, trying to resurrect the scheme for amalgamation among themselves, but this time the E&GR opposed the bill; the mood within the E&GR had changed considerably and the entire board of directors had changed, and the board now had a hostile view of the Monkland lines. The hostility had led to the E&GR giving notice to cease the working arrangement of January 1846, and in August 1847 the Monkland Mineral Lines reluctantly resumed working their own railways. The reluctance extended as far as suing the E&GR for compliance with the agreement to work the lines, but this eventually proved abortive.