Monkland and Kirkintilloch Railway

The Monkland and Kirkintilloch Railway is an early mineral railway running from a colliery at Monklands to the Forth and Clyde Canal at Kirkintilloch, Scotland.

It is the first public railway in Scotland, and the first in Scotland to use locomotive power successfully, and it is a major influence in the successful development of the Lanarkshire iron industry.

It opens in 1826.

It is built to enable the cheaper transport of coal to market, breaking the monopoly of the Monkland Canal

It connects 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 makes the railway successful, and the ironstone pits depend  at first on the railway.

Horse traction is used at first, but steam locomotive operation is later introduced: the first successful such use in Scotland.

Passengers are later carried, and briefly the M&KR forms a section of the principal passenger route between Edinburgh and Glasgow.

In 1848 the Company merges with two adjoining railway lines to become the Monkland Railways; which in turn are absorbed by the Edinburgh and Glasgow Railway.

A short length of the original route remains in use in the Coatbridge area.

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