This railway is open to passenger traffic. It was originally single track, then largely doubled and is presently single again. The line is particularly notable for the very fine terminus at Wemyss Bay. Wemyss Bay station and line are promoted and supported by the Friends of Wemyss Bay .
/ /1862 | Greenock and Wemyss Bay Railway Act receives Royal assent for a line between Greenock and Wemyss Bay and a pier at Wemyss Bay. |
/ /1863 | Greenock and Wemyss Bay Railway Extension of proposed line and a different, replacement, pier authorised at Wemyss Bay. |
01/05/1865 | Greenock and Wemyss Bay Railway
Wemyss Bay Steamboat Company Operates vessels between Wemyss Bay, Largs Pier and Millport Pier. |
15/05/1865 | Greenock and Wemyss Bay Railway Line opened from Port Glasgow through southern Greenock to Wemyss Bay. Stations at Upper Greenock, Ravenscraig, Inverkip and Wemyss Bay. |
/ /1869 | Greenock and Wemyss Bay Railway
Wemyss Bay Steamboat Company The Wemyss Bay Steamboat Company ceases operation. |
01/08/1893 | Greenock and Wemyss Bay RailwayCaledonian Railway Greenock and Wemyss Bay Railway absorbed by Caledonian Railway. |
/ /1899 | Greenock and Wemyss Bay Railway Authorisation to double line, enlarge Wemyss Bay pier and power to dredge at pier. |
02/06/1902 | Greenock and Wemyss Bay Railway Port Glasgow to Upper Greenock doubled. |
/ /1903 | Greenock and Wemyss Bay Railway Wemyss Bay station and pier re-built in grand style by the Caledonian Railway. |
01/06/1903 | Greenock and Wemyss Bay Railway Doubling of Dunrod Loop to Wemyss Bay opened. |
/ /1904 | Greenock and Wemyss Bay Railway Extension of time until 1907 to complete widening works. |
/ /1907 | Greenock and Wemyss Bay Railway Extension of time until 1910 to complete widening works. |
/ /1909 | Greenock and Wemyss Bay Railway Extension of time until 1913 to complete widening works. |
/ /1913 | Greenock and Wemyss Bay Railway Extension of time until 1916 to complete widening works. |
/ /1915 | Greenock and Wemyss Bay Railway Extension of time until 1919 to complete widening works. |
/ /1944 | Greenock and Wemyss Bay Railway Ravenscraig closed. |
/ /1967 | Greenock and Wemyss Bay Railway Upper Greenock closed. |
/ /1967 | Greenock and Wemyss Bay Railway Branchton station opened. |
/ /1971 | Greenock and Wemyss Bay Railway Containerbase Junction opened, a link to the former Greenock and Ayrshire Railway's Inchgreen branch which, beyond Cartsburn Junction, gave access along its former main line to Greenock Princes Pier now rebuilt as the Greenock Containerbase Sidings (Greenock Container Port). |
/ /1978 | Greenock and Wemyss Bay Railway IBM Halt opened. |
/ /1983 | Greenock and Wemyss Bay Railway IBM Halt renamed IBM. |
/ /1990 | Greenock and Wemyss Bay Railway Whinhill station opened. |
/ /1991 | Greenock and Wemyss Bay Railway Containerbase Junction to Greenock Containerbase Sidings officially closed (?). (Track remained in place for years.) |
25/06/1994 | Greenock and Wemyss Bay Railway The driver and a passenger are killed when a train de-rails near what later became Drumfrochar station, after vandals placed concrete blocks on the line, and struck a bridge. |
/05/1998 | Greenock and Wemyss Bay Railway Drumfrochar station opened |
23/03/2003 | Greenock and Wemyss Bay Railway A train carrying over 100 passengers has to come to a halt near Whinhill station when debris had been placed on the line. The driver, having detrained, was attacked with stones from above. |
/08/2011 | Greenock and Wemyss Bay Railway Disused land to be allowed to be used by the Friends of Wemyss Bay as a vegetable garden. |
09/12/2018 | Greenock and Wemyss Bay Railway Trains stop calling at IBM. |
These locations are along the line.
This junction is west of Port Glasgow station. It is the junction between the Glasgow to Greenock line (the 1841 Glasgow, Paisley and Greenock Railway) and the 1Wemyss Bay line (the 865 Greenock and Wemyss Bay Railway).
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This junction opened with a new line to serve the Greenock Container Port, built on the site of Greenock Princes Pier station in 1969.
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This is a single bore 930ft tunnel carrying a single line. The line was doubled by opening a second single bore tunnel to the immediate south, Cartsburn Tunnel South. The second tunnel is slightly longer at the east end and is now disused.
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More detailsThis is a single platform station, the platform erected on the south side of the single track line. The station is immediately west of Cartsburn Tunnel.
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This was Walkinshaw and Co's paper mill in the south of Greenock, served by a steeply graded 'puggy line' from Berryards Junction, east of the Upper Greenock station on the Wemyss Bay railway. Access to the branch was via headshunts on the south side of the main line, which made a trailing connection at the junction. The branch was sufficiently steep that wagons were required to be ...
More detailsThis junction was east of Upper Greenock station. It was the junction for the steeply graded line (opened 1890) to Walkinshaw and Co.'s Overton Paper Mill (the 'puggy line'). Whinhill station (opened 1990) is just to the east today. The paper mill's mile long branch was reached by a reversing spur east of the junction, the spur was approached from the west. To the west, and on the ...
More detailsThis was, from 1976, the Tate and Lyle factory in Greenock, known for its distinctive smell which lingered over the area. The factory has been demolished.
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At closure this was an island platform station with a canopied station building. Sidings for the Berryards Sugar Refinery were to the north, with Berryards Junction off to the east. The Upper Greenock Goods was off to the west, also north of the line. Access to the island platform was by subway from Lynedoch Street. There was a signal box at either end of the station.
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More detailsThis is a single platform fairly modern station on the Wemyss Bay to Port Glasgow branch.
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This was a single platform station on the east side of the line, with a siding opposite approached from the Wemyss Bay direction.
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This loop is between Branchton and Inverkip, breaking the single track section between Wemyss Bay Junction and Wemyss Bay - it is the only loop on the line. There was no station here. There is a unidirectional line and a southbound loop line.
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This was a pair of single track girder viaducts east of Inverkip station. Of the two, the later (the southern which built in 1903 when the line was double) remains in use, the other, the original of 1865, has had its girders removed although the piers remain. The viaducts crossed the Daff Burn, running in the steeply sided Daff Glen.
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This is a single platform station on the north side of a single line. With considerable expansion of Inverkip to the south with new house building in recent years a footbridge has been added to allow access to the south. At its height this was a superb small station.
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There are two single bore tunnels just west of Inverkip on the line to Wemyss Bay. The present tunnel, the older dating from 1865, was retained,. The newer tunnel, a little to the south east of the original, slightly longer and dating from the doubling of 1903, is out of use. Both tunnels are on a gentle curve so that the line entering from the east turns southwards
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More detailsThis engine shed was on the west sde of the railway just north of Wemyss Bay station, north of the bridge over the A78.
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More detailsThe original Wemyss Bay terminus occupied the extreme eastern part of the site of the present station. The frontage was a closer to the road and within today's car park in front of the present station.
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This is one of the pre-eminent 'must see' stations in Scotland. In 1905 it replaced an original Wemyss Bay [1st] station of 1865 on a slightly different orientation (see that entry for the 1865-1905 details). It is a terminus and a combined station and pier with a very fine concourse (with semi-circular ticket office supporting the glass roof), canopied platforms, main station building with a ...
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