Stobcross Railway

The Stobcross Railway was a railway line built by the North British Railway to connect from Maryhill to the new dock being built at Stobcross; the dock became the Queen's Dock, opened in 1877. The line was opened first, in 1874, and gave the North British company access to the north bank of the River Clyde; there was a goods depot at Partick.

As industry and housing developed further west the line became the stem of further branches, and in 1886 the sub-surface Glasgow City and District Railway connected through Queen Street Low Level to Stobcross.

Queen's Dock closed in 1969 and freight use of the line was minimal, but part of the line has been electrified and most of it is in use in 2015 for passenger trains.

The Glasgow, Dumbarton and Helensburgh Railway (GD&HR) was opened in 1858, running from the Edinburgh and Glasgow Railway (E&GR) at Cowlairs to Dumbarton where it joined an existing railway; together they served Balloch and Loch Lomond, and Helensburgh. The new line ran in a broad loop round the north of Glasgow and then westwards some distance north of the River Clyde. At the time the industry of Glasgow was concentrated in the central and eastern areas, and the shipping that came to the city berthed at Broomielaw; there was relatively little industrial and marine activity on Clydeside west of the city, and the GD&HR did not serve those areas.

The GD&HR was absorbed by the E&GR in 1862 and the E&GR was itself absorbed by the larger North British Railway (NBR) in 1865.

As shipping activity increased, larger and more numerous vessels required to berth in Glasgow and it was obvious that they could not be accommodated in the central area. In 1872 the Clyde Commissioners started work on a new dock at Stobcross, on the north shore of the Clyde to the west of the city. The new dock was formally opened on 18 September 1877 by the Lord Provost of Glasgow, and he announced that by permission of Queen Victoria the new dock was to be known as The Queen's Dock.

The new facility was obviously going to make considerable changes to commodity flows in Glasgow, and the North British Railway set about constructing a branch line to serve the dock. The NBR obtained an authorising Act in 1869; it was amended in 1870 and 1871 for financial reasons. The line was to run from Maryhill on the GD&HR southwards, turning east past the Royal Lunatic Asylum (later converted and now Gartnavel Hospital), then running south-east through Partickhill to the dock. Even though the route avoided the main city area, considerable difficulty and expense arose from the necessary land acquisition.

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