Introduction

This branch served the Knightswood Colliery, Skaterigg, Cowdenhill and Temple. It opened around 1875, a year after the Stobcross Railway from which it branched. The line left the north end of what later became Anniesland station at Knightswood South Junction to run west then south before continuing, after a reversal, to Netherton and Cowdenhill. The layout was altered over the branch's history. Note that the branch was opened by the North British Railway before it opened the Glasgow City and District Railway in 1886. Knightswood mining focused on iron ore and coal. The colliery was an old one, once associated with the Knightswood Waggonway (Dumbarton Glassworks) and the Dumbarton Glass Works. The lands were latterly owned by the Summerlee Iron Company but many of the major iron companies had been involved - such as the Carron Iron Works, Dundyvan Iron Works and Coltness Iron Works. Much of the area was built over with housing in the late 1920s when the Jordanhill Brick Works closed, but the branch survived realignment with the opening of the associated Great Western Road and continued to serve brick and other works. It closed around 1965. A bridge parapet for an underline bridge survives on Fulton Street with a very large overline bridge to its west. The trackbed near Great Western Road is walkable. Another branch also served the ironstone pits in the area, leading south west from the north end of Anniesland station. Nothing now remains of this.