Monkland and Kirkintilloch Railway - Locomotives

Locomotives

When the line opened, the motive power was horses, owned by independent hauliers. However the technical developments achieved on the Liverpool and Manchester Railway were noted, and the company decided to purchase a locomotive; it was designed by George Dodds, the company's own superintendent, and it was constructed by Murdoch, Aitken and Company of Glasgow. No. 1 (as it was designated) was delivered on 10 May 1831:

It was taken from the workshop, Hill Street, on Tuesday morning, and being started on the railway below Chryston, it passed several miles along the railway, sometimes going at the rate of fifteen miles per hour, although the company's engines are not required to move, when loaded, at a greater speed than 4 miles an hour.

The same makers delivered No. 2 on 10 September 1831. These locomotives were of the "Killingworth" type, considered even at this date rather old-fashioned. They had two vertical cylinders, and the pistons had piston rings; the boiler was 9 ft long by 4½ feet diameter, with 62 copper tubes 1½ inches diameter; working pressure was 50 lbs per sq in. The wheels were 4 feet in diameter. The locomotives were reported to have been very reliable.

When the second locomotive was acquired, the two units operated on either side of a tunnel which had inadequate clearance; horses were used through the tunnel. In January 1832 through working was started, the line having been doubled, and the tunnel opened out. The location in question is at Bedlay, on a sharp curve immediately south of the Stirling Road, now the A80.

In 1837 the Company built a workshop for the locomotive purposes at Kipps. Locomotives Nos. 3 and 4 were made by the Company itself in 1834 and 1838 respectively. Locomotives named Zephyr, Atlas and Orion were operating in the 1840s.

A key factor in the ability to run locomotives at this early date was the use of Birkinshaw patent malleable iron rails. These were strong enough to bear the weight of locomotives, unlike the plateways (such as the Kilmarnock and Troon Railway, where the first, unsuccessful attempt to operate locomotives in Scotland took place) or ordinary cast iron rails, which were brittle and prone to fracture under heavy unsprung loads.