Dalry and North Johnstone Line
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The Dalry and North Johnstone Line (also known as the Lochwinnoch Loop Line or Kilbarchan Loop Line) was a branch of the Glasgow and South Western Railway (G&SWR) in Renfrewshire and Ayrshire, Scotland, connecting the stations in Elderslie and Dalry via a route running parallel to the existing line built by the Glasgow, Paisley, Kilmarnock and Ayr Railway. This provided additional line capacity for Ayrshire Coast and Kilmarnock services. The loop line was used for passenger services until the mid-1960s, when it was closed by the Beeching Axe. The majority of the line's trackbed has since been absorbed into the Sustrans National Cycle Network.
The Glasgow, Paisley, Kilmarnock and Ayr Railway (GPK&AR) had opened its main line between Glasgow and Ayr in 1839 - 1840. From Paisley the route ran through Johnstone, Dalry and Irvine. Between Glasgow and Paisley, the route was the Glasgow and Paisley Joint Line, operated jointly with the competing Glasgow, Paisley and Greenock Railway. After amalgamations, the Ayr line was part of the system of the Glasgow and South Western Railway (G&SWR) and the Greenock line formed part of the Caledonian Railway, a bitter rival of the G&SWR. As well as the traffic for Ayr, the G&SWR ran trains to Carlisle over the route as far as Dalry, then diverging to Kilamrnock.
Over the following decades the route became increasingly busy, as mineral traffic in particular grew in volume, competing for line capacity with express and local passenger trains and ordinary goods trains. On the Joint Line, the traffic of two routes was carried, and the G&SWR decided to construct a line to by-pass the Joint Line. This became the Paisley Canal Line, which opened in 1885. Running from a junction at the south-western margin of Glasgow, the Canal Line rejoined the Ayr main line west of Paisley, at Elderslie. This gave the G&SWR an independent route from its Glasgow passenger terminal, St Enoch station, and its principal goods depot there, at College. However the route followed the course of the Glasgow, Paisley and Johnstone Canal, now filled in, and the multiple curves on the route prevented high speed running.
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