Dumbarton and Balloch Joint Railway

The Caledonian and Dumbartonshire Junction Railway (C&DJR) was a Scottish railway opened in 1850 between Bowling and Balloch via Dumbarton. The company had intended to build to Glasgow but it could not raise the money.

Other railways later reached Dumbarton, and the C&DJR was taken over by the larger Edinburgh and Glasgow Railway in 1862. It later became simply a branch of the larger North British Railway network.

When the rival Lanarkshire and Dumbartonshire Railway proposed a line to Balloch running close nearby, agreement was reached to make part of the former C&DJR line jointly owned, and this was done in 1896, forming the Dumbarton and Balloch Joint Railway.

Most of the original C&DJR line continues in use at the present day.

Important note: the spelling Dumbartonshire was consistently used in official documentation in the nineteenth century, notwithstanding the later use of Dunbartonshire for the county.

William Stirling established a textile dyeworks at Cordale, near Renton in the valley of the River Leven, in 1770. Other industrialists in textile finishing established nearby and the area between Balloch and Dumbarton quickly became a centre of the industry. Turkey red dye became a famous part of the textile industry.

Dumbarton had long been an important town on the road from the Western Highlands and Glasgow, and shipbuilding had developed into an important industry in the town.

The Edinburgh and Glasgow Railway (E&GR) had started operation in 1842, showing the advantages of an inter-urban railway line. There was a frenzy of railway promotion in the following years and in 1845 the Caledonian Railway along with many other Scottish lines obtained their Acts of Parliament; a Scottish network was beginning to form. Seeing the benefit of a railway connection, in 1844 promoters put forward a scheme for a line from the E&GR line near Cowlairs, immediately north of Glasgow, to run through Dumbarton to Helensburgh and Balloch; from Cowlairs the line would make a broad sweep round the northern margin of Glasgow, approximately on the course of the later Cowlairs - Maryhill - Westerton - Dalmuir line.

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