The intermediate stations were at Corstorphine (later Saughton), Gogar, Ratho, Winchburgh, Linlithgow, Polmont, Falkirk, Castlecary, Croy, Kirkintilloch (later Lenzie) and Bishopbriggs.

Patronage on the line quickly reached double the railway's initial estimates, and by 1850 58 locomotives and 216 coaches were needed to handle the traffic.

[5] The earliest railways in Scotland were waggonways, intended for horse drawn operation, in most cases from a colliery or other mineral source, to a waterway for onward transport.

The pressure to connect the two great cities of central Scotland continued, and in the second half of the 1830s money became freely available, and investors, chiefly in England (many of them shareholders in the Liverpool and Manchester line), promoted a viable railway.

[8] Bad weather delayed the progress of the work but on New Years Day 1842 the public were invited to walk through the tunnel at Glasgow Queen Street.

[7][page needed] The tunnel was whitewashed and gas lit, and the proceeds went to the Paisley Relief Fund and workmen injured on the railway.

The permanent way consisted of malleable iron rails on stone blocks; the form of construction was already obsolete; "half logs" were used in some places.

The intermediate stations were at Corstorphine (later Saughton), Gogar, Ratho, Winchburgh, Linlithgow, Polmont, Falkirk, Castlecary, Croy, Kirkintilloch (later Lenzie) and Bishopbriggs.

There was soon difficulty with the hemp rope slipping in damp weather, and two banking engines[note 2] named Samson and Hercules, were introduced in 1844, but they were found to be damaging to the track, and the powerful exhaust caused vibrations in the roof, leading to leakage of the canal water.

[12][page needed] The endless rope for the incline was driven by two beam engines at Cowlairs, of the high pressure type, made by Kerr, Neilson and Company of Glasgow.

Leaving Glasgow the train moved slowly to the tunnel mouth and there a chain secured to a hemp messenger rope, lashed in turn to the cable, was linked to the front drawhook [which was inverted].

A boardwalk about 100 yards long laid in the four foot way prevented the dropped messenger with its chain getting into mischief in the few moments before the winding engine stopped.

On arrival at Cowlairs the train engine would be detached and run round its carriages, after it had shunted on to the head end three or more special brake wagons.

That group of companies worked as a voluntary combination for a few months under Bryan Padgett Gregson, an experienced manager of canals and railways from Lancashire.

In late 1846 the Lancashire shareholders, insensitive to the fear of Caledonian hegemony and reluctant to spend money acquiring canals, which they considered to be beaten competitors, overturned the arrangement, and Gregson was dismissed.

It was difficult in operational terms, but in July the Caledonian accelerated its passenger trains and added new fast services, and cheap fares.

The Board of Trade Inspecting Officer commented about the Longridge terminus: "The line terminates in a large field, about a mile from a small village called Whitburn".

The E&GR needed to ensure that it got access to the Stirling and Perth line from the Edinburgh direction, and to do so it sponsored the Stirlingshire Midland Junction Railway.

The nominally independent company got its authorising Act of Parliament on 16 July 1846, to build a line from Polmont (on the E&GR) through Grahamston (part of Falkirk), crossing the Forth and Clyde Canal and turning north to join the SCR near Larbert.

There was a last minute disagreement between the two companies, and at first the trains from Helensburgh ran to Buchanan Street via Sighthill, reversing on to the Caledonian Railway line.

[1][page needed] On 28 January 1862 the E&GR and the Caledonian Railway signed the Thirty Years Agreement, in which traffic and receipts on a number of routes were shared by a pre-arranged formula.

[note 7] This resulted in North British Railway transfer traffic to Glasgow being charged very high rates, and Hodgson, Chairman of the NBR, determined to get control of the E&GR.

The E&GR had long been harbouring a plan to absorb the Monkland Railways, which had an extensive network in central Scotland mainly devoted to mineral sites.

[21][page needed] The Locomotive Superintendent of the NBR made a tour of inspection of E&GR and Monkland Railways depots and found the rolling stock in an extremely poor state, badly under-reported in official returns.

[21][page needed] Now part of the North British Railway network, the E&GR line formed the trunk of the westward routes from Edinburgh.

A more direct route from Edinburgh to Dalmeny, at the south end of the bridge, was provided as part of the work; it left the E&GR main line at Saughton.

The direct line through Falkirk High was closed between 9 March 1980 and 8 December 1980 for tunnel repairs and the installation of slab track; for the time being through trains ran via Grahamston.

From 7 January 1957, Swindon-built inter-city diesel multiple units were introduced; running in six car formations, they operated the fast trains between Edinburgh and Glasgow.

The new trains were a considerable success, and the unit formation avoided the engine run-round and disposal moves at each end of the journey, which was especially useful at Glasgow because of the tunnel constraint.

The eastern section consists of 36 ashlar-faced segmental arches of 50 feet span, and the line is on a sweeping curve of about 2,500 yards radius.