Location type

Name and dates

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

Description

Originally the Caledonian Railway's Sighthill Junction.

The first use of this junction was for locomotives from Buchanan Street station to reach the Inchbelly Works without having to run all the way east to Milton Junction [Glasgow]. The same connection was later used to reach St Rollox Works. It also served St Rollox Goods East.

Additionally, and better known, this junction was a link between the Sighthill Branch (Edinburgh and Glasgow Railway) and the Caledonian Railway's Glasgow Buchanan Street to Milton Junction [Glasgow] alignment. There were several exchange sidings (Sighthill Loops) alongside the connection between here and Sighthill Junction.

Earthworks for this link were prepared with the Sighthill branch. These were authorised in 1853 but with the companies disagreeing about access the Edinburgh and Glasgow Railway was ordered by Court to remove works from the Caledonian Railway land in 1854.

Agreement was finally reached and the junction opened in 1869.

The Caledonian Railway had running powers over North British Railway lines from here - the Sighthill Branch (Edinburgh and Glasgow Railway), Edinburgh and Glasgow Railway, Glasgow, Dumbarton and Helensburgh Railway and Stobcross Railway to Partickhill Goods [CR] and Stobcross Quay - although the company later developed its own routes to these locations.

The signal box was located on the north side of the junction.

The connection was freight only until 1966, when Buchanan Street closed and the line from here to Sighthill Junction was upgraded in advance of this to allow passenger trains. As it happened only the Cumbernauld shuttle was diverted, now running to the bay platforms at Springburn to meet the terminating Milngavie to Springburn via Glasgow Queen Street Low Level service, a hardly ideal connection.

In 1961 the box was replaced when Sighthill Goods was substantially rebuilt to be approached from the east instead of the north. the yard closed in October 1981.

The box closed in 1984, after which the connection into St Rollox Works was via a reversing spur (originally one of the Sighthill Loops) here on a line from Sighthill Junction.

Also known as Sighthill Junction East.

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