North Clyde Line


The North Clyde Line is a suburban railway in West Central Scotland. The route is operated by ScotRail. As a result of the incorporation of the Airdrie–Bathgate rail link and the Edinburgh–Bathgate line, this route has become the fourth rail link between Glasgow and Edinburgh.

Route

The North Clyde Line, electrified by British Rail in 1960, ran east–west through the Greater Glasgow conurbation, linking northern Lanarkshire with western Dunbartonshire, by way of the city centre. Fifty years later, in 2010, the line was extended by Network Rail east from Airdrie, by way of re-opening the line to Bathgate meeting up with the line re-opened by British Rail from Edinburgh.
The main core of the route runs from to via and Glasgow Queen Street. To the east of the Glasgow city centre, there is a short branch to, while to the west there are two routes between and , as well as branches to and.
The lines from to Dalmuir and Milngavie are also used by Argyle Line services, whilst West Highland Line services share the line between and. In the east, the line between Newbridge Junction and is shared with the Glasgow to Edinburgh via Falkirk Line and the Edinburgh to Dunblane Line. In addition to the interchange with services from Glasgow Queen Street and Edinburgh Waverley, there are interchanges with the Cumbernauld Line at Springburn, with the Maryhill Line at, and with the Glasgow Subway at Partick. Some sections of the North Clyde Line are also traversed by freight trains.
The line runs through central Glasgow, and the principal station on the line is Glasgow Queen Street. The section through the city centre largely runs in tunnels between High Street and the former Finnieston station. This is the oldest stretch of underground railway in Glasgow, opened as the Glasgow City & District Railway in 1886 and predating the Glasgow Subway by some ten years.

History

Lists of Openings, Closures, and Re-openings

Constituents

Like most of Glasgow's suburban railways, the North Clyde Lines as they are known today were built piecemeal from a patchwork of routes from various Victorian-era railway companies. In addition to the extension east of Airdrie, these are listed below:
The majority of these lines were absorbed by the North British Railway; the exceptions being the Lanarkshire and Dunbartonshire Railway, which was part of the Caledonian Railway, and the western part of the Caledonian and Dunbartonshire Junction Railway. At the time of the Grouping in 1923, the North British Railway became part of the London and North Eastern Railway, while the Caledonian Railway became part of the London, Midland and Scottish Railway.

Closures

Following nationalisation in 1948, all of the lines came under the ownership of British Railways. A number of former LNER branch lines which fed into the North Clyde system were closed during the 1950s because they duplicated former LMS lines. Other lines closed due to lack of traffic, or later because they were not selected for inclusion in the electrification project. Notable withdrawals of passenger service occurred on:
  • 1 May 1930: Manuel and Bathgate to Coatbridge Central ;
  • 2 April 1951: Whiteinch Victoria branch, also the Kelvin Valley Line ;
  • 10 September 1951: Bothwell to Coatbridge Sunnyside;
  • 15 September 1952: Hamilton to Bothwell;
  • 4 July 1955: Bothwell to Shettleston;
  • 9 January 1956: Ratho to Airdrie;
  • 14 September 1959: Clydebank East terminus;
  • 5 November 1960: Hyndland branch
  • 5 November 1979: branch
  • 28 September 1986: Balloch Central to Balloch Pier

    Re-openings

  • 24 March 1986: Newbridge Junction to Bathgate
  • May 1989: Airdrie to Drumgelloch
  • 18 October 2010: Drumgelloch to Bathgate
  • 12 December 2010: Drumgelloch to Bathgate

    Electrification

In 1960 the remainder of the North Clyde suburban system underwent electrification. After a ceremony on Saturday 5 November 1960, a free public service of electric trains ran on Sunday, and the full normal advertised public service started on Monday 7 November 1960. A new junction between the former LNER and LMS lines was built at Dunglass, just west of Bowling, allowing North Clyde Line services to use the former LMS line through, and the original LNER line from Dunglass to Dumbarton Central was closed. The outer areas were electrified to the 25 kV AC 50 Hz standard, with the central area, the Springburn, Bridgeton, and Milngavie branches, and the Yoker line being at 6.25 kV AC due to restricted clearances in tunnels. As insulation technology improved these lines were eventually converted to 25 kV.
In October 2010, the line between Bathgate and Airdrie opened complete with electrification at 25 kV for crew training and charter trains. The section between Bathgate and Haymarket was also electrified at 25 kV. This work was carried out as part of the Airdrie-Bathgate Rail Link.

Argyle line

The former Caledonian Railway lines in north-west Glasgow and Dunbartonshire closed to passengers and then freight. However, the section from through Glasgow Central was reopened as the Argyle Line in 1979. A new flying junction was built east of Partick to connect the Argyle Line with the North Clyde Line. The Bridgeton Central branch closed to passengers on 5 November 1979, having been replaced by the re-opened Bridgeton Cross station on the Argyle Line, though Bridgeton Central station was retained as a carriage cleaning facility. On 17 December 1979, Partickhill station was replaced by the new Partick slightly to the south, which provides a connection with the Subway.
An short electrified link to the east of Blairhill in the Gartsherrie area of Coatbridge also connects the two lines together, but is only used as a diversionary path for Argyle Line services to run over the North Clyde whenever the route via Glasgow Central is closed - an example of this was in December 1994 when severe flooding closed the main spine of the Argyle Line for nine months, forcing Dalmuir-Lanark services to run via Glasgow Queen Street.

Balloch Pier

Pleasure steamer operations on Loch Lomond ceased in the 1980s, leading to the closure of Balloch Pier on 28 September 1986. The Balloch branch was further truncated in April 1988 when Balloch Central was replaced by the new station on the opposite site of Balloch Road, which allowed the elimination of a level crossing. The catenary from the closed section to Balloch Pier was then used to reopen the line east of Airdrie to a new terminus at Drumgelloch in May 1989.

Airdrie–Bathgate rail link

Passenger services from Edinburgh to Airdrie ceased in 1956, but the line between Edinburgh and Bathgate was reopened to passenger traffic on a trial basis in 1986 and proved an instant success. In 2005, the Scottish Executive declared that in line with plans to upgrade the remaining section of the A8 road to motorway standard, public transport links between Glasgow and Edinburgh must also be improved. Therefore, to create a fourth direct rail link between Glasgow and Edinburgh, the closed section of the Bathgate and Coatbridge Railway between and the 1989 Drumgelloch station was re-opened, and the existing lines from Newbridge Junction to Bathgate and Drumgelloch to Airdrie were upgraded. The whole line is double track and electrified, with a maximum line speed of. The existing 30-minute frequency Helensburgh–Drumgelloch and Milngavie–Airdrie services have been extended to providing an enhanced 15 minute frequency between Bathgate and Edinburgh.
The new link received the final approval of the Scottish Parliament on 28 March 2007 and gained Royal Assent on 9 May 2007. Work commenced with a sod cutting ceremony at in June 2007, with reinstatement of double track between Newbridge and Bathgate being the first stage, completed in October 2008.
The line opened for driver training and charter trains in October 2010, with the passenger service commencing on 12 December 2010.

Cumbernauld Line

As part of the wider Edinburgh to Glasgow Improvement Programme, plans were made to electrify the Cumbernauld Line and the Garngad Chord, adjacent to Springburn, creating an electrified link between the Springburn branch of the North Clyde Line and the Cumbernauld Line - then operated by diesel multiple units into Glasgow Queen Street High Level - allowing electric service from Cumbernauld into the Low Level of Glasgow Queen Street, and thus connecting Cumbernauld to destinations west of Glasgow, whilst also freeing up capacity on the High Level lines out of Queen Street. Contracts for the improvements were let out in January 2013, with completion scheduled in time for the 2014 Commonwealth Games. From May 2014, electric trains began running between Balloch/Dalmuir and Cumbernauld and Partick and Cumbernauld using class 318, 320, and 334. As the reinstatement of the Garngad Chord was cancelled, the through-service trains had to reverse at Springburn station. Following the completion of EGIP, through electric services from Glasgow Queen Street High Level to Edinburgh Waverley via Cumbernauld were introduced using new Class 385 units, replacing the services which previously reversed at Springburn.