|
The Monkland and Kirkintilloch Railway was an early mineral railway running from a colliery at Monklands to the Forth and Clyde Canal at Kirkintilloch, Scotland. It was the first public railway in Scotland,〔Henry Grote Lewin, ''The British Railway System'', G Bell and Sons Ltd, London, 1914〕 and the first in Scotland to use locomotive power successfully, and it was a major influence in the successful development of the Lanarkshire iron industry. It opened in 1826. It was built to enable the cheaper transport of coal to market, breaking the monopoly of the Monkland Canal. It connected with the Forth and Clyde Canal at Kirkintilloch, giving onward access not only to Glasgow, but to Edinburgh as well. The development of good ironstone deposits in the Coatbridge area made the railway successful, and the ironstone pits depended at first on the railway. Horse traction was used at first, but steam locomotive operation was later introduced: the first successful such use in Scotland. Passengers were later carried, and briefly the M&KR formed a section of the principal passenger route between Edinburgh and Glasgow. In 1848 the Company merged with two adjoining railway lines to become the Monkland Railways; which in turn were absorbed by the Edinburgh and Glasgow Railway. A short length of the original route remains in use in the Coatbridge area. ==Formation of the railway== In the first decades of the nineteenth century, the City of Glasgow had a large and increasing requirement for coal, for domestic and industrial use, and after the cessation of coal extraction from local pits, this was chiefly supplied from the Lanarkshire coal field, centred near Airdrie, in Monkland. There was also some extraction of iron ore in the area. The Monkland Canal had opened in 1794, and provided a considerable stimulus to the coalpits in Monkland, and early iron workings were encouraged also. However, before the era of a proper road network, the canal had a virtual monopoly of transport, and it set its prices accordingly; so successful was its exploitation of the situation that it "for many years yielded a dividend of Cent. per cent ... arising solely on its tolls on coal".〔''Forth & Clyde Canal Company Minutes'' 6th November 1828, quoted in Robertson〕 A group of interested businessmen promoted the Monkland & Kirkintilloch Railway to link the coal pits and iron works to the Forth and Clyde Canal at Kirkintilloch. If coal and minerals were transshipped there, they could reach not only Glasgow, escaping the monopoly of the Monkland Canal but also Edinburgh.〔Don Martin, ''The Monkland and Kirkintilloch and Associated Railways'', Strathkelvin Public Libraries, Kirkintilloch, 1995, ISBN 0 904966 41 0〕〔C J A Robertson, ''The Origins of the Scottish Railway System: 1722-1844'', John Donald Publishers Ltd, Edinburgh, 1983, ISBN 0-8597-6088-X.〕〔Thomas (1971)〕 The scheme obtained parliamentary authority on 17 May 1824, with share capital of £32,000 and powers to raise a further £10,000 by additional shares or by borrowing. Construction started by contract the following month.〔〔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, ISBN 0 946537 12 7〕 The engineer for the scheme was Thomas Grainger, in his first large undertaking; he had previously been chiefly engaged in road schemes.〔〔 When he became engaged on the construction of the railway, he took as his assistant John Miller, and a year later the two men formed a partnership, Grainger & Miller, which was to be heavily involved in Scottish railway schemes.〔 It was built to the track gauge of , and as other 'coal railways' opened up in the area in connection with the line, this track gauge became established for their use.〔〔Don Martin, ''The Monkland and Kirkintilloch Railway'', Strathkelvin Public Libraries, Kirkintilloch, 1976〕 It is not known why Grainger chose this gauge. He must have been aware of the huge success of the Stockton and Darlington Railway, built to a gauge of 4 ft 8½ in. The convention for specifying gauge had not settled down at this early date; as late as 1845 Captain Coddington of the Railway Inspectorate was describing another railway and wrote: "Gauge of rails 4 ft 8½ in from centre of rail to centre of rail, and 4 feet 6 inches from inside to inside of rail."〔Captain J Coddington, ''Report on the Wilsontown, Morningside and Coltness Railway'', dated 11 June 1845 in Parliamentary Papers Railway Department, Session: 22 January – 28 August 1846〕 and it is not impossible that Grainger intended to imitate the Stockton line but mistook the parameter. Whatever the reason, he inadvertently caused huge disadvantage to the M&KR and several other coal railways in Central Scotland. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Monkland and Kirkintilloch Railway」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
|