Largs Branch
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The Largs Branch is a railway line in Scotland, serving communities on the north Ayrshire Coast, as well as the deep water ocean terminal at Hunterston. It branches from the Glasgow to Ayr line at Kilwinning.
The first part was formed when the Ardrossan Railway was built, with the principal objective of facilitating coastwise export of minerals and import of goods to Glasgow, but it was only partly successful. The later Glasgow and South Western Railway extended the line to serve Largs, opening the line throughout in 1885.
There is a half-hourly electric passenger train service a far as Ardrossan, and generally hourly from there to Largs. Heavy mineral trains use the route from Hunterston deep water terminal.
The twelfth Earl of Eglinton developed Ardrossan Harbour in the early years of the nineteenth century, intending it to be useful for the transport of minerals from Ayrshire by coastal shipping, and as an inwards port to serve Glasgow. He tried to build the Glasgow, Paisley and Ardrossan Canal, but the scheme ran out of money and only reached Johnstone, becoming the Glasgow, Paisley and Johnstone Canal.
He next obtained authorisation in 1827 for the Ardrossan and Johnstone Railway, intending to link his truncated canal by a railway. This too failed to reach its full extent, and was only constructed between Ardrossan and Kilwinning, with an eastward mineral branch to Perceton and Doura collieries, which he controlled. The line was horse-operated and the track consisted of cast iron fishbelly rails on stone blocks; the track gauge was 4 ft 6 in (1,372 mm). It opened in 1831, and passengers as well as minerals were carried, at least between Ardrossan and Kilwinning, and it was called the Ardrossan Railway.
Within a short time, promoters began raising support for a railway between Glasgow and Ayr, and Glasgow and Kilmarnock. This scheme became the Glasgow, Paisley, Kilmarnock and Ayr Railway (GPK&AR); it was authorised in 1837, and opened in stages between 1839 and 1840. It was a locomotive railway on the standard gauge, and it intersected the Ardrossan Railway at Kilwinning.
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Wikipedia