Location type

Name and dates

Note: text in square brackets is added for clarity and was not part of the location's name.

Description

Shields Tunnel is a twin bore tunnel, both bores built for two tracks. When built it carried two arms of the new General Terminus and Glasgow Harbour Railway and passed under both the Glasgow, Paisley and Ardrossan Canal and Shields Road (which crossed over the canal by Shields Bridge at this point).

The northern bore, known as Terminus Tunnel carried the line from Terminus Junction to General Terminus.

The southern bore, known as Clydesdale Tunnel (for the Clydesdale Junction Railway, later Clydesdale Section of the Caledonian Railway, to the east of which the General Terminus and Glasgow Harbour Railway formed an extension), carried the line from Shields Junction (No 1) to Terminus Junction.

The route of the canal, after closure, was taken by the Paisley Canal Line (Glasgow and South Western Railway) in 1885. for this the tunnel was slightly altered with the addition of girders at either end to allow the railway to cross on an easier curve than the canal.

Kinning Park Junction, at the west end of the northern bore, was a later creation dating from the opening of Kinning Park Goods. At first there was no connection at the yard to the main line of the Glasgow and Paisley Joint Railway.

This part of the Canal Line, above the tunnel, closed in 1966 with the closure of St Enoch. General Terminus also closed, in 1986. The west end of the Kinning Park Goods branch had been modified earlier to make a connection at Shields Junctions.

Today both bores carry a single track, now electrified lines. Both run from the Shields Junctions east to Terminus Junction with the northern bore carrying a 'fly under' route which crosses below the former Glasgow and Paisley Joint Railway. The line is known as the 'Burma Road'.