Glasgow and Milngavie Junction Railway

The Glasgow and Milngavie Junction Railway was a short locally promoted branch line built to connect the industrial town of Milngavie with the main line railway network, near Glasgow, Scotland. It opened in 1863.

The town, and Bearsden, an intermediate location on the line, became significant residential centres, and nowadays the line is a part of the Glasgow commuter network. No freight is handled on the line.

The inventor George Bennie developed the Bennie Railplane, a system of overhead express passenger railways, and he built a demonstration section above a dormant industrial siding that branched from the line. However Bennie was unable to attract investment to implement his scheme, and the demonstration track was dismantled in 1956.

On 28 May 1858 the Glasgow, Dumbarton and Helensburgh Railway opened its line, running from Cowlairs, where it joined the Edinburgh and Glasgow Railway a short distance north of its Queen Street terminus.

Milngavie was a rural town with considerable industry, especially in the textile printing and papermaking trades. The GD&HR was the first railway in the area north west of Glasgow, but the benefits of railway connection, in reducing the cost of commodities like coal and agricultural supplies, and in facilitating transport of manufactured goods to market, were plain to see elsewhere. Seeing that the GD&HR passed not far from their town, businesspeople in Milngavie determined to promote a branch line to make the connection. They obtained the authorising Act of Parliament for the Glasgow and Milngavie Junction Railway on 1 August 1861; the capital was £30,000.

Although the district was lightly populated, high class residential travel was developing in similar situations elsewhere, and was expected to be a positive factor for the Milngavie line.

The line was just over 3 miles (5 km) long and construction was not difficult; the line opened on 28 April 1863. Like the GD&HR, it was worked by the Edinburgh and Glasgow Railway for 50% of gross receipts. There was one intermediate station at Bearsden.

South of Milngavie a short branch led to the Burnbrae Dye Works, and at Milngavie a long siding extended past the station to Ellangowan Paper Mills. There were a considerable number of goods sidings at Milngavie.

On 28 July 1873 the North British Railway (General Purposes) Act was passed, authorising the takeover of the Milngavie line by the NBR. The line became simply a part of the growing North Clyde network of the NBR.

The line had been constructed as a single line; it was doubled on 24 April 1900. Hillfoot station was opened at the same time.

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