120th Anniversary
The Sixties marked a major double blow for local transport
The SS Gipsy Queen pictured at Townhead Bridge in Kirkintilloch before the canal closure. |
Locals were devastated at the closure of the Forth and Clyde Canal in January, 1963, and Kirkintilloch's glory days of rail came to an end, when both its stations closed in 1966.
The closure of the Port of
Grangemouth to merchant ships during World War II was the beginning of the end for the canal.
After 1918, the canal failed to regain its pre-war position, and trade was never quite the same.
And in the latter years before the canal shut, it was used almost entirely as a route for fishing boats
and pleasure crafts.
Just three years later the town's two railway stations were closed down.
Up until then Kirkintilloch had been served by two separate railway lines - the former Monkland and Kirkintilloch Railway, which terminated beside the Canal in Southbank Road, and the Campsie Branch of the Edinburgh and Glasgow Railway which had a station at Eastside.
The Monkland Railway, which opened in 1826, was only the second public railway in Scotland and the first with rails strong enough to support steam locomotives.
The Campsie Branch was
opened as far as Lennoxtown in 1848 and eventually extended right up to Aberfoyle.
The railways had been an important development in Kirkintilloch with a passenger service being enjoyed at Eastside station until 1964.
The station in Southbank Road, however, had not been used by passengers since the mid-nineteenth century, being used mainly as a goods line.
The canal as a means of transport may, however, now be making a comeback.
The completion of the ambitious Millennium Link project, re-opened coast-to-coast and city-to-city navigation along the Forth & Clyde and Union Canals.
The centre-piece of this ambitious scheme was the re-connection of the two canals at Falkirk with the construction of the Falkirk Wheel – the world’s first rotating boat lift.
After months of tunnelling and dredging, new locks and bridges built, the canal link was eventually re-opened.
Staff at Kirkintilloch Station, which was on the Campsie Branch line |
Bishopbriggs residents stage battle to stay out of Glasgow
ANGRY Bishopbriggs residents stood together from the start of the decade declaring: WE DON'T WANT TO BE RUN BY GLASGOW.
A White Paper on Local Government Reform in Scotland had recommended that Bishopbriggs join the new Glasgow District Council.
But locals believed they had more in common with neighbouring Kirkintilloch, Lenzie and Chryston.
And they were concerned that if they were lumped in with the City of Glasgow, they would be left with little say over decisions affecting their lives.
An Action Committee was formed and met with then North Lanarkshire MP - later to become the Labour Party leader - John Smith to press their case at Westminster
One member, Mrs Dorothea Blake, said in a Committee Newsletter in February 1973: ''How can we hope to have 'local democracy' and 'local involvement' in a proposed district of 1,170,000 people?
''How can we have local democracy and involvement in a district where ONE councillor will have to speak for more than 13,000 electors in an authority of 84 councillors?
FRUSTRATING
''The government MUST NOT IGNORE the electors of Bishopbriggs.
The Bishopbriggs Action Committee even visited Downing Street in 1973 to voice their concerns.
And, after a long and often frustrating battle, the Government agreed that it was in Bishopbriggs' best interest to be included in the new Strathkelvin District Council from its outset in 1976.
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