The Wishaw and Coltness Railway was an early Scottish mineral railway. It ran for approximately from Chapel Colliery, at Newmains in North Lanarkshire connecting to the Monkland and Kirkintilloch Railway near Whifflet, giving a means of transport for minerals around Newmains to market in Glasgow and Edinburgh.
Shortage of capital made construction slow, and the line was opened in stages from 1833, opening fully on 9 March 1844.
It was built to the track gauge of , commonly used in Scotland for coal railways. It had several branches serving pits and ironworks.
In 1849 it became part of the Caledonian Railway and sections of the original network form part of the modern West Coast Main Line railway.
Formation of the railway In the early decades of the 19th century, the pace of industrialisation in central Scotland accelerated considerably, generating a huge demand for the raw materials of coal and iron ore. Transport of these heavy materials to market was a key issue. Canals offered some solution to this problem, but railways came to be seen as a more accessible option. The Monkland and Kirkintilloch Railway was opened in 1828, giving access to Monklands pits to Glasgow and Edinburgh via the Forth and Clyde Canal, vastly reducing the cost of carriage. Pits further afield saw the benefit to their competitors, and thought of constructing their own lines.
A Garturk and Garion Railway bill was presented to Parliament in 1829Leslie James, A Chronology of the Construction of Britain's Railways, 1778–1855, Ian Allan, Shepperton, 1983, E F Carter, An Historical Geography of the Railways of the British Isles, Cassell, London, 1959 (though Awdry calls it the Garion and Garturk Railway).Christopher Awdry, Encyclopaedia of British Railway Companies, Patrick Stephens Limited, Wellingborough, 1990, Journal of the House of Commons, Volume 84, 23 March 1829Garion, etc, was the spelling used at the time.
During the parliamentary process the name was changed to the Wishaw and Coltness Railway, and under that name it was incorporated by an act of Parliament, the (10 Geo. 4. c. cvii), on 1 June 1829. This authorised "making a railway from Chapel, in the parish of Cambusnethan, ...by Coltness and Gariongill, to join the Monkland and Kirkintilloch Railway ... in the parish of Old Monkland". Share capital was £80,000 with borrowing powers of £20,000. Tolls were laid down, and "the company may provide carriages for the conveyance of passengers, and charge for each person conveyed a rate of 4d per mile" and "locomotive engines may be used on the railway"C. J. A. Robertson, The Origins of the Scottish Railway System, 1722–1844, John Donald Publishers Ltd, Edinburgh, 1983, Joseph Priestley, Historical Account of the Navigable Rivers Canals and Railways of Great Britain, Longman, Rees, Orme, Brown and Green, London, 1831Popplewell
The name of the company refers to the area where minerals would originate. Coltness Colliery was in the area of Wishaw, and both places were some distance from the present-day communities. The northern end of the proposed system was a junction to another railway at Whifflet, and perhaps did not seem an attractive component when the company's name was being chosen.
Priestley says that the line was "designed to pass from the collieries of Chapel and Crawfoot, in the parish of Cambusnethan, in the county of Lanark, through Daiziel, Hamilton, Bothwell, Coltness, Overtown, Wishawtown, Motherwell, Burnhouse and Carnbroe, to join the Monkland and Kirkintilloch Railway at Old Monkland; with a branch to Rosehall; a second to the collieries of Stevenson, Carfin and Cleland; and a third from these last places to Law, in the parish of Carluke, in the same county of Lanark". Several of these objectives were never achieved in the independent lifetime of the company.
In securing parliamentary authority, the company had to accept a clause in its act forbidding the use of locomotives, to overcome the opposition of Drysdale of Jerviston, to a line which, he claimed, "would enable the Landed Proprietors south of Major Drysdale to enhance the value of their estates at the expense of his". The prohibition was later bought out for £1,000, of which the company paid half.Wishaw and Coltness Minutes, 6 Feb 1837, quoted in Robertson
Shortage of funds led to further acts, the (4 & 5 Will. 4. c. xli) and the (7 Will. 4 & 1 Vict. c. c) to obtain three-year extensions for completion of the railway; a further £80,000 of capital was raised by 1840 and this was followed by a further act, the (4 & 5 Vict. c. xi) to raise an addition £160,000 of capital.
Opening in stages
First section to Chapelknowe The new company found raising money difficult, and this considerably slowed completion of the line.
The first section was opened on 23 January 1834,John Thomas revised J S Paterson, A Regional History of the Railways of Great Britain: Volume 6, Scotland, the Lowlands and the Borders, David and Charles, Newton Abbot, 1984, running southwards from a junction with the Monkland and Kirkintilloch Railway at Whifflat Junction (as it was then spelt: immediately east of the present A725) road to "Holytown", actually on the Holytown Road, now the A775. There was a tunnel at Carnbroe Iron Works and a "Holytown Tunnel" a short distance north of the present A8 road crossing.The tunnels were opened out for the widening of the line in 1854 and 1855.
Nine weeks later, on 31 March 1834 the line was opened to the pits at Chapelknowe: immediately south of Holytown Road the line swerved eastwards. When other parts of the line were built later, there was a continuation south and the site became, much later, Mossend North Junction. However a passenger station called Holytown was opened there in 1844, changing its name to Mossend in 1882.
Now running south-east to east, the line passed a Carfin station (renamed Holytown in 1882) and a Newarthill station (renamed Carfin in 1928). As far as this point, the route is still in operation today as Whifflet—Mossend North Junction—Holytown—Carfin, but here the original line turned south to serve several pits in the Cleland estate at Chapelknowe.Col M H Cobb, The Railways of Great Britain -- A Historical Atlas, Ian Allan Publishing Limited, Shepperton, 2003,
Coltness Estate In 1836 Thomas Houldsworth, a Manchester entrepreneur, purchased the Coltness Estate, with its extensive mineral rights. At this time the railway company had run out of money to complete the building of their line. "In order to allow the development of his minerals, Houldsworth agreed that if the company extended their line to Coltness, for which they would require to borrow £20,000 and to get an act of Parliament allowing an extension of time for construction, he would personally guarantee the interest on the loan, and pay £300 towards the expenses of obtaining what became the Wishaw and Coltness Railway Act 1837. He also agree to give the necessary land on the Coltness Estate free (apart from compensation to tenants) and to send all his goods by the railway, if the Company charged him the prevailing rate." He also agreed to pay half of the payment to the Drysdale estate to buy out the prohibition on locomotives.
Reaching Jerviston As money became available, the next extension (actually the intended "main line") was built, about long, and opening in 1838, running due south from the junction at "Holytown" (i.e. Mossend North Junction) to "Jerviston", serving several pits. The location was at the north end of the (later) Ravenscraig complex, and the route was to the east of the present Mossend - Motherwell line (opened in 1857).
On to "Coltness" In 1841 the next section was opened, from Jerviston to Overton (now spelt Overtown). Continuing south from Jerviston and crossing the Clyde, the line turned south-east at Motherwell Junction, a little distance south-east of the present-day station there; from there the line formed the route of the present West Coast Main Line, serving coal and ironstone pits and clay pits and reaching Coltness Colliery, which was in the area between the bridges at Pather and Overtown.
To Chapel at last In 1842 a further extension was opened, taking the line on from Coltness Colliery to Chapel Colliery—the first-named objective in Priestley's description—in the area of Morningside. This was immediately east of the Stirling Road (later A73). Passenger stations were opened in 1845 at Overtown and "Carluke"; the Carluke station was on the Stirling Road near the site of the old Law Hospital.
Morningside The final stage in the gradual extension of the route was achieved on 9 March 1844; continuing from Chapel Colliery, the line ran the short distance to pits and a brick and tile works close to Morningside, involving a bridge over the Auchter Water.James states that this is the date when the line reached Chapel.
Wilsontown, Morningside and Coltness Railway In 1845 the Wilsontown, Morningside and Coltness Railway (WM&CR) opened its line, on 2 June. The new railway sought to connect pits further east to the developing network towards the Monklands and the Clyde, and was therefore dependent on the Wishaw and Coltness Railway. The newcomer was always short of money and never succeeded to connecting the important iron works at Wilsontown, and the inspecting officer for passenger operation wrote that "the line terminates in a large field, about a mile from a small village called Whitburn."Captain J Coddington, in Report dated 11 June 1845 in Parliamentary Papers, Railway Department, Session: 22 January – 28 August 1846
The newcomer built a Morningside terminus, facing east, in the north-east angle of Mill Road and Morningside Road, and built a short connection to the Wishaw and Coltness Railway (W&CR) on the west side of Morningside Road. The promptly built its own Morningside station at that point, abutting the road, and from the station.Railway Clearing House, Official Railway Junction Diagrams, 1915, reprinted David & Charles (holdings) Ltd, Newton Abbot, 1969,
Operation Like the other coal railways built in the same period, the railway thought of itself as analogous to a canal, where it provided a route and independent hauliers provided wagons and horses to pull them, and paid the company a toll for the privilege. In fact the original Wishaw and Coltness Railway Act 1829 stipulated that "Owners of land may erect wharfs, warehouses and cranes on the line, and if they refuse the company may do so, charging for the use thereof [certain laid down charges]"Quoted in Priestley
By 1838 the Garnkirk and Glasgow Railway (G&GR) was operating locomotives over the and the .Report of Committee of Management of Wishaw & Coltness Railway, 5 February 1838, quoted in Robertson
In 1839 the company decided to adopt locomotive traction, and to reduce the multiplicity of horse traders, in order to "do away with the collisions which are daily taking place between the drivers".Report of the Committee of Management of the Wishaw and Coltness, 9 September 1839, quoted in Robertson
In 1842 the company bought 323 wagons from the independent hauliers on their line to reduce the number of traders on the line and to keep down the complaints from traders that locomotives were damaging their wagons.Robert Dodds, General Remarks on the Wishaw and Coltness Railway ..., 1844, quoted in Robertson
The wagons were primitive and unsprung, and when the Caledonian Railway was later negotiating to purchase the line, it was essential to be able to report that "new wagons with springs and entire new engines have been put on".Evidence by Joseph Locke to Parliamentary Select Committee, 24 April 1849, quoted in Robertson
In 1843–1845, 1,057,431 tons were carried by the company, of which 61.2% were conveyed by the company itself, and the balance by independent hauliers.Parliamentary Papers, Report of the Railway Department for 1844-1845, quoted in Robertson