page_title: Forth and Clyde Canal
section_title: Changes of ownership
hierarchical_section_title: Forth and Clyde Canal / Changes of ownership
caption_attribution_description: Ruchill Church, Glasgow, seen from the Forth and Clyde Canal. photograph taken on 5 April 2006 by User:Dave souza. Any re-use to contain this licence notice and to attribute the work to w:User:Dave souza at Wikipedia.
context_page_description: The Forth and Clyde Canal is a canal opened in 1790, crossing central Scotland; it provided a route for the seagoing vessels of the day between the Firth of Forth and the Firth of Clyde at the narrowest part of the Scottish Lowlands. This allowed navigation from Edinburgh on the east coast to the port of Glasgow on the west coast. The canal is 35 miles long and it runs from the River Carron at Grangemouth to the River Clyde at Bowling, and had an important basin at Port Dundas in Glasgow.
  Successful in its day, it suffered as the seagoing vessels were built larger and could no longer pass through. The railway age further impaired the success of the canal, and in the 1930s decline had ended in dormancy. The final decision to close the canal in the early 1960s was made due to maintenance costs of bridges crossing the canal exceeding the revenues it brought in. However, subsidies to the rail network were also a cause for its decline and the closure ended the movement of the east-coast Forth River fishing fleets across the country to fish the Irish Sea.
context_section_description: In 1842 an Act of Parliament was obtained authorising the Caledonian Railway to take over the Forth and Clyde Canal along with the Forth and Cart Canal, although this did not take effect until 1867.
  In the meantime the Canal company itself had built a railway branch line to Grangemouth Dock, which it owned.
  The canal was nationalised in 1948, along with the railway companies, and control passed to the British Transport Commission. In 1962, the British Transport Commission was wound up, and control passed to the British Waterways Board; subsequently Scottish Canals took control.
caption: The branch within Glasgow from Maryhill to Port Dundas, showing Ruchill Church.
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