| Paisley Canal line | |||
|---|---|---|---|
 AClass 314 service to Glasgow atPaisley Canal in 2013 | |||
| Overview | |||
| Owner | Network Rail | ||
| Locale | Glasgow, Scotland | ||
| Termini | |||
| Stations | 7 | ||
| Service | |||
| System | National Rail | ||
| Operator(s) | ScotRail | ||
| Rolling stock | |||
| History | |||
| Opened | 1885 | ||
| Technical | |||
| Number of tracks | Double track from Glasgow Central to Corkerhill Depot | ||
| Track gauge | 4 ft 8+1⁄2 in (1,435 mm) | ||
| Electrification | 25 kV 50 Hz AC | ||
| |||
ThePaisley Canal line is a branch railway line in Scotland running betweenGlasgow andPaisley. The line currently terminates atPaisley Canal railway station, although it previously continued through Paisley West station, near Ferguslie, toEldersliejunction where it met and crossed under the main Glasgow and South Western Railway line running from Paisley Gilmour Street station toJohnstone, and beyond. AfterElderslie, the line terminated at North Johnstone, however another junction allowed services from the Paisley Canal line (also part of the Glasgow and South Western Railway Company) to continue onto theBridge of Weir Railway andGreenock and Ayrshire Railway to the latter's terminus atGreenock Princes Pier.
The line has its origins in the ambitions ofHugh Montgomerie, 12th Earl of Eglinton, who had headed and championed both theGlasgow, Paisley and Johnstone Canal and theArdrossan Railway. While these had been aimed to developing a route betweenArdrossan and Glasgow, these routes were only part-built due to a lack of available finance for the work. During the mid-1800s, theGlasgow and South Western Railway (G&SWR) acquired both the canal and the railway. While the canal was operated as such for a time, during 1881,G&SWR set about the conversion of the canal to a railway line to relieve theGlasgow and Paisley joint line. During March 1885, the first trains commenced use of the new line.
During the 1960s, services on the line were dramatically curtailed as a result of theBeeching cuts; during these years, various stations were closed to both passenger and freight services and often demolished. On 10 January 1983, the line between Elderslie and Kilmacolm closed completely to scheduled passenger services; but the section between Hawkhead and Shields Junction remained open to serve an oil depot. A late 1980s Strathclyde Passenger Transport initiative resulted in the resumption of passenger services between Glasgow Central and a new Paisley Canal station, along with five intermediate stations, on 27 July 1990. In the years since its re-launch, additional stations have been built and opened on the route. During 2012, the entirety of the line waselectrified, being furnished with a 25 kV ACoverhead line for electric traction. On some occasions through 2018-19 Class 320 and class 318 units were used.
During the early years of the 19th century,Hugh Montgomerie, 12th Earl of Eglinton developedArdrossan Harbour at a cost of more than £100,000: he intended for it to serve as a sea port to serve the nearby city of Glasgow, as theRiver Clyde was not navigable for large vessels at the time. In 1806, he obtained authority in theGlasgow, Paisley and Ardrossan Canal Act 1806 (46 Geo. 3. c. lxxv) to construct the Glasgow, Paisley and Ardrossan Canal. Montgomerie held hopes that other businessmen and investors would quickly subscribe to his scheme; however, only £44,342 would prove to be forthcoming. While work did commence on the canal at the Glasgow end; it had only reached Johnstone by the time by which all of the raised money for the endeavour had been spent; in addition, the company had also borrowed considerable sums, when combined, debts of £71,209 had been accumulated. As part of financial reconstruction efforts, the canal's name was changed to theGlasgow, Paisley and Johnstone Canal.
Later on, Montgomerie's attention turned to building a railway at the Ardrossan end of the canal's intended route; these aspirations became theArdrossan Railway. This too was built with the aim of connecting Ardrossan to Glasgow and, just as its predecessor had, it ran out of money during construction, having only reached Kilwinning and Eglinton's collieries in the vicinity. On 5 July 1865, theG&SWR was authorised by anact of Parliament[which?] to acquire the canal, which it did so at a cost of £91,000; however, it had long since possessed a controlling stake in the canal company, having purchased its debt in connection withG&SWR's earlier acquisition of the Ardrossan Railway, with which the canal's financial affairs had been long intertwined.[1][page needed][2][page needed]
Early on, theG&SWR undertook to keep the canal operational and open to traffic, as well as to pay £3,471 annually to the canal company's proprietors.[3][page needed] At the time therefore, there had been no declared intention to use the physical infrastructure of the canal for railway-related purposes; however, at ashareholders' meeting held during 1879, the chairman referred to a newspaper article which had made claims that theG&SWR held intentions to convert the canal into a railway line. At that time, there was extreme sensitivity among shareholders over what some saw as the directors' whimsical and expensive schemes, leading to the chairman speaking out to deny the claim, stating: "That had not entered into the minds of any of the directors, nor was it thought of in the most remote manner, till they saw it in the newspaper." In the chairman's own words, the suggestion of such a conversion: "was perfect nonsense".[4]
By this time, theGlasgow and South Western Railway (G&SWR) possessed an operational main line between Ayr and Carlisle; but the first section of the Ayr line was over theGlasgow and Paisley joint line. Under this structure, it was operated by a Joint Committee, which was answerable to both theG&SWR and its rival, theCaledonian Railway. This lack of sovereignty was a difficult enough prospect for the highly competitive railway politics of the era; but, as traffic developed, congestion on the busy line became a serious and obstructing issue which fuelled conflict. At that time, goods traffic was heavy and slow, thus both line capacity and service reliability were becoming heavily compromised by the high levels of traffic using the existing line.[citation needed]
During the 1881 parliamentary session, a bill was lodged by theG&SWR for the draining of the canal and conversion work to build a railway on its route: exactly the scheme to which the former chairman had described asperfect nonsense only two years beforehand. On this occasion, there was no serious opposition to the proposal raised, thus an act of Parliament authorising this work, theGlasgow and South-Western Railway Act 1881 (44 & 45 Vict. c. cxlix), was passed.[3][page needed] However, this outcome had meant that theG&SWR had found itself in the position of having to raise money for the building of the new line, as well as for existing projects such as the quadrupling of the joint line and the extension of Gilmour Street station at Paisley simultaneously.[citation needed]
During 1881, the same year as the canal's conversion work been authorised by Parliament, it was permanently closed to traffic and drained in preparation for building the railway on top of its former route.[5] The canal had been built as acontour line, following exactly a particular altitude; in this manner, it had avoided the use oflocks at the expense of having to adopt a circuitous route between its destinations. During the reconstruction works, many of the loops and sharper turns which had been taken by the course of the canal were eased, often via the use of earthworks, as the higher-speed railway was less tolerant of sharp curves but more able to accommodate the presence of mild gradients.[citation needed]
During March 1885, the first goods trains started running on the new line;[1][page needed] on 1 July 1885, it was also opened to passenger trains.[6][page needed] In addition to serving local trains, a number of long distance expresses made use of the route; reportedly, the best time achieved from St Enoch to Paisley Canal was 17 minutes, compared with 16 minutes to Gilmour Street on the joint line.[1][page needed]
During the following year, on 5 February 1886, the Potterhill branch of the Canal line opened; this was built to account for the expanding industrial importance of Paisley. Soon, a total of eight westbound and seven eastbound stopping trains were running each day on the Canal line; of these, five were extended to run onto or from Potterhill, while the remainder ran through to Johnstone. A triangular junction was built to provide access to the Potterhill line. The Potterhill branch would later form the base of theBarrhead Branch.
During 1894–1895, construction work on the Canal line was focused upon the building of extensive carriage sidings at Bellahouston, as well as an engine shed at nearby Corkerhill. The availability of affordable land at these locations had rendered such schemes much more economical, but came at the expense of additional empty mileage.[1][page needed]
The line left theCity of Glasgow Union Railway (CGUR) at Shields Junction (at the point where the CGUR joined the joint line) and followed a course south of that route, running through the southern part of Paisley Burgh and rejoining theG&SWR line to Ayr at Elderslie. As theCGUR was controlled by theG&SWR, G&SWR passenger trains from St Enoch, and goods trains from College, could reach Ayr without the necessity of entering on any part of the joint line. Despite the easing of the worst curvature, the new Canal Line was unsuited to fast running due to the alignment. A loop in the canal was used to hold cooling water for the cotton thread mills at Ferguslie.
AtElderslieJunction it ran alongside the Glasgow and South Western Railway line running from Paisley Gilmour Street station to Johnstone and beyond, before crossing it via a dive-under crossing. The line terminated at a station at North Johnstone, however another junction near Elderslie provided access onto theBridge of Weir Railway. This is not theG&SWRJohnstone North railway station on theDalry and North Johnstone Line, but an earlier station of the same name at a slightly different location.[7][8][9]
The main line was opened March 1885 to goods traffic, and on 1 July 1885 to passenger services. It was closed on 10 January 1983; and reopened from Shields Jn to Paisley Canal (new station) on 28 July 1990.
Potterhill branch.Opened 5 February 1886. Closed
Note: Entries in italic were not passenger stations.
The line crosses the White Water of Cart atBlackhall Bridge. This was originally an aqueduct, theRiver Cart Aqueduct, which had been built for the Ardrossan Canal between 1808 and 1810, under the direction of the famedcivil engineerThomas Telford. The contractor for the aqueduct's construction was John Simpson and the cost of construction was £5,440. It is a freestone masonry segmental arch of 88 ft 6in (27 m) span and a height over the water of about 30 feet (9 m). The bridge is probably the longest span masonry aqueduct of the canal age on a British canal, and one of the world's earliest bridges to carry a public railway. It had to be widened in order to carry the double track railway, the line also crosses the bridge at a slight skew because of the easing of the sharp canal curvature.[3][page needed][12][page needed]
Author David L. Smith recounts an anecdote illustrating the difficulty of working fast trains over the Canal Line:
In later years, as a driver, Coutts got no. 80, a Manson 4-4-0, and he had her a long while. One night he was on the 5.10 with her, 50 minutes non-stop for the 41.9 miles [from St Enoch] to Ayr; Felix Hill was firing to him. Well, some of the "Heid Yins" were going down to Turnberry Hotel for the weekend, and they were travelling in the Directors' Saloon, a vehicle which Mr. C Hamilton Ellis once described as of "more than imperial splendour". The G&SW men had no such reverence for it. They called it, crudely, and no doubt unfairly, "The Shebeen". Some economist at St Enoch thought that a bit of mileage might be saved by tacking "the Shebeen" on the back of the 5.10. Now the 5.10 in those days went out by way of Paisley Canal, a route which has about as much curvature per mile as the Darjeeling-Himalayan, and with only ten minutes allowed in which to cover the first 8¼ miles to Paisley, a driver hadn't much time to ponder over radii and centrifugal force.
Away they went, thunder-and-turf, out the Canal Road. Coutts took [the curve at] Saucel at about his usual [speed], and he slid the whole crowd in "The Shebeen" under the table. Paisley Canal station did the same; and so did Elderslie. Right out at the cow's tail and getting all the wag, the distinguished party had a pretty stormy trip all the way to Ayr, at which point the murder of Coutts was strongly advocated. But when they found that Coutts had actuallylost a minute to Paisley, they began to think something must be wrong with the routing, so the 5.10 was altered to runvia the Glasgow and Paisley Joint Line, which was at least straight.[13][page needed]
The main difference between the original and current routes into Glasgow after 1966 was the alteration of Shields Junction to head toGlasgow Central instead of St Enoch. This was due to the fate of St Enoch station, which was a victim of theBeeching cuts, having been closed on 27 June 1966 to passenger services and 5 June 1967 to goods and parcel trains; the station was demolished during 1975. Since then, theSt Enoch Centre (which took its name from the former occupier of the site) has been built upon the same land as had been used by the old station.[citation needed] During 1966,Elderslie station was also closed and demolished in the following years.[8] Around the same time, the stations atHawkhead andPaisley West were also closed.[8]
For a time, passenger services continued on the Paisley Canal line up until its full closure; these ran from Glasgow Central station toKilmacolm, while occasional trains to the Ayrshire Coast Line (usingClass 101,Class 107 andClass 126diesel multiple units among others) were also run. During the line's latter years, as a cost reduction exercise, the signal boxes were only single-shift staffed, resulting in the last train of the day being run around 7pm.
On 10 January 1983, the line between Elderslie and Kilmacolm closed completely, as well as between Elderslie and Shields Junction, to scheduled passenger services.[8][5]
Following the closure of passenger services, the tracks between Shields Junction and Elderslie Junction were used for another two or three years to enable heavymerry-go-roundcoal andiron ore traffic fromHunterston Ore Terminal, on theAyrshire Coast Line, to bypass the main line between Elderslie Junction, Paisley Gilmour Street Station and Glasgow Shields Junction. There were also occasional passenger train diversions away from Paisley Gilmour Street due to works associated with theAyrLine electrification project. However, even this traffic was diverted onto the line through Paisley Gilmour Street, and the Paisley Canal line was closed completely to all traffic between Hawkhead and Elderslie, partly as a result of the resignalling scheme associated with theAyrLine electrification project resulting in the severing of the line at Elderslie. The section between Hawkhead and Shields Junction remained open to serve the oil depot.[5]
During 1986, the track between Elderslie andPaisley Canal station was lifted, and the land around Paisley Canal station, including the line and the goods yard, was sold on and was mainly redeveloped for housing.[8] The station building itself was converted for use as a restaurant,[8] while the station footbridge was demolished and the space between the platforms filled in. Much of the abandoned railway line beyond the original Paisley Canal station has since been developed into a cycleway and walkway operated bySustrans.[8]
On 27 July 1990,[8] the line between Shields Junction and Paisley Canal station was reopened to passenger traffic byStrathclyde Passenger Transport andBritish Rail. A newPaisley Canal station was constructed just to the east of the Causeyside Street bridge.
For this reopening, the intermediate stations located at Corkerhill, Mosspark and Crookston were also restored at the same time. Subsequent to the line's re-launch, new stations at Hawkhead (one platform) and Dumbreck (two platforms) have been opened. Most stations have only a single working platform.[citation needed]
As part of the 1980sAyrshire Coast Line electrification, the line between Shields Junction and Corkerhill Depot, which was around one third of the overall route, was electrified, which enabled use of the depot by electric traction.[5] According to author David Shirres, this early electrification work helped to strengthen the business case for the subsequent full electrification of the line, as there was no need for additional high-voltage switchgear to be installed. The tight timetable of the route had also posed significant challenges to the diesel trains used in the route, although these constraints were partially the result of it being a single line, it was recognised that electric rolling stock would have less of a problem due to their greater acceleration.[5]
Surveys of the route determined a conventional electrification scheme would have an estimated cost of between £20 and £28 million.[5] A large proportion of these costs were due to the challenge posed by nine of the line's twelve overbridges, which required electrification clearance work under traditional practices; further difficulties were present at the site of three of these bridges, as they were adjacent to station platforms, so any track lowering would necessitate platform re-construction as well. As the high costs of a conventional approach was judged to be around twice that of which could be justified by the business case, innovative measures and compromises alike were adopted for the planned electrification work.[5]
According to Shirres, a policy of closer working relationships between national infrastructure maintainer and ownerNetwork Rail and franchise operators, in this case ScotRail, had the benefit of significantly reducing the cost of the line's electrification.[5] For the six-week construction period, ScotRail waived its compensation payment rights normally associated with short notice disruptive possessions and also arranged for its sister company,First Glasgow, to accept ScotRail train tickets on local bus services. Observing that only EMUs were intended to operate the route, Network Rail developed customised overhead line equipment (OLE) for the electrification scheme; according to Brian Sweeney, Network Rail asset engineer for electrification in Scotland, traditional practices were overturned where realistic and the lowest possible wire height for EMU operation was specified, however, the pre-electrification W7 gauge was retained for the line.[5] These combined measures had the effect of lowering the scheme's cost to £12 million.[5]
While Network Rail's 2010, route plan update stated that the Paisley Canal electrification programme was to commence during 2014; the work in fact occurred two years earlier due to rapid and favourable progress made during the planning phase.[5] In June 2012,Babcock International was awarded a fixed-price design and construct contract to perform all Paisley Canal electrification works with a six-month programme. During July 2012, electrification of the section of line from Corkerhill to Paisley Canal commenced.[14] For the next six months, the majority of work was carried out during possessions held at weekends and after 8pm on Mondays to Thursdays; a nine-day blockade of the line was also necessary, during which track, bridge, and station modifications, including the rebuilding of the platform at Hawkhead station, were performed.[5]
During November 2012, it was announced that the electrification project had been successfully completed.[15][16] From December 2012 onwards, as a result of the line's electrification,Class 314,Class 318,Class 320,Class 334 andClass 380[17]electric multiple units have been used to operate the service. Prior to this,Class 156diesel multiple units had been used; these have been released for duties elsewhere.[5] Since the route's electrification, freight trains can only traverse the line with the overhead wires de-energised (and thus must be diesel), as a result of the minimum wire height of 4.030 metres being used instead of the standard minimum height of 4.165 metres; this requirement was judged to be insignificant in the context of this particular line.[5]
The reopening of the section between Paisley Canal station and Kilmacolm has been proposed.[18][19]
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