page_title: Lesmahagow Railway
section_title: Construction
hierarchical_section_title: Lesmahagow Railway / Construction
caption_attribution_description: English: Remains of Nethan Viaduct This was the highest railway viaduct in Scotland, I have been told
context_page_description: The Lesmahgow Railway, south of Glasgow in Scotland, was developed by a company known as The Lesmahagow Branches. It was not an independent company in the usual sense. It was a financially independent, self-contained unit within the framework of the Caledonian Railway. The shareholders and officers of both companies were mainly the same people. The line was built largely to transport the vast amount coal being produced by the many mines in the area. Royal assent was given to build the line in 1847 but construction did not commence till 1854. In 1856 the line was opened in stages. Later there was found to be a demand for
  passenger services which commenced in 1868. In 1923, with the grouping, the CR amalgamated with several other companies to form the London, Midland and Scottish Railway which, following nationalisation in 1947, became part of British Railways.
context_section_description: There were major difficulties building the line as, following  rain, the ground took up the appearance and consistency of black mud. The line was built over a vast coalfield. In between the coal were large deposits of various other valuable minerals. There were several landslips as the embankments were being built. Two large viaducts had to be constructed. - one at Nethan and another near Hamilton. The former had to be re-constructed a few years following the opening as the heavy coal trains were causing considerable damage. It had been built to a very low budget and was too low. Consequently, the approaches on both sides were very steep. In a costly rebuild iron piers were inserted between the existing stone ones and the rail level was raised by 19½ feet permitting an easing of the approach gradients. Even then the Nethan viaduct was a fragile structure and one of the highest in Scotland. A 20 m.p.h. speed limit was imposed on it. It was demolished in 1955.  Lesmahgow station was high above and well east of the town. In July 1905 a roughly parallel line was built with a station closer to the centre of the town and the earlier station was renamed Brocketsbrae. Trains ceased to call at the latter station in 1951.
caption: One of the extant stone piers of Nethan Viaduct in 2007
exif: {"Image Make": "Canon", "Image Model": "Canon DIGITAL IXUS", "Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image XResolution": "180", "Image YResolution": "180", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image DateTime": "2007:03:19 13:36:04", "Image YCbCrPositioning": "Centered", "Image ExifOffset": "184", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "180", "Thumbnail YResolution": "180", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail Tag 0x000A": "1524", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "4365", "EXIF ExposureTime": "1/250", "EXIF FNumber": "71/10", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0210", "EXIF DateTimeOriginal": "2007:03:19 13:36:04", "EXIF DateTimeDigitized": "2007:03:19 13:36:04", "EXIF ComponentsConfiguration": "YCbCr", "EXIF CompressedBitsPerPixel": "3", "EXIF ShutterSpeedValue": "261023/32768", "EXIF ApertureValue": "46331/8192", "EXIF ExposureBiasValue": "0", "EXIF MaxApertureValue": "97349/32768", "EXIF SubjectDistance": "1679/500", "EXIF MeteringMode": "CenterWeightedAverage", "EXIF Flash": "Flash did not fire", "EXIF FocalLength": "173/32", "EXIF FlashPixVersion": "0100", "EXIF ColorSpace": "sRGB", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "1600", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "1200", "Interoperability InteroperabilityIndex": "R98", "Interoperability InteroperabilityVersion": "[48, 49, 48, 48]", "Interoperability RelatedImageWidth": "1600", "Interoperability RelatedImageLength": "1200", "EXIF InteroperabilityOffset": "1088", "EXIF FocalPlaneXResolution": "800000/103", "EXIF FocalPlaneYResolution": "240000/31", "EXIF FocalPlaneResolutionUnit": "2", "EXIF SensingMethod": "One-chip color area", "EXIF FileSource": "Digital Camera"}