Despite the name, the canal was never completed down to Ardrossan, the termini being Port Eglinton in Glasgow and Thorn Brae in Johnstone.

He wanted to connect the booming industrial towns of Glasgow, Paisley and Johnstone to his new deep sea port at Ardrossan and his Ayrshire coal fields.

[1] The Earl had spent £100,000 on creating Ardrossan's harbour and intended to make it the principal port for Glasgow.

[1] Interest was also shown by Lord Montgomerie and William Houston who would also benefit from the canal passing through their lands and connecting their own coal and iron mines to nearby industrial consumers.

In this pre McAdam period, the roads around Lanarkshire, Renfrewshire and Ayrshire were not suitable for heavily loaded traffic.

Following the land, a contour canal is entirely level and requires no locks or lifts making navigation quick and easy.

The costs of completing the first 11-mile (18 km) contour canal had consumed all the available funds – the initial estimates having been grossly understated.

Hugh Montgomerie, 12th Earl of Eglinton, had already spent £100,000 on a separate project to build a sea harbour at Ardrossan, at the proposed terminus of the canal.

[3] Attempts were made to raise extra funds but other major investors, such as William Houston, were reluctant to invest as the canal already linked his own coal and iron mines, around Johnstone, to Glasgow and Paisley.

[4] A wharf was built on the north bank of the White Cart near Crookston Castle; and canal basins provided at Paisley and Johnstone.

The boats reached speeds of 10 miles per hour (16 km/h), and although 14 journeys were made each day, no damage was caused to the canal banks by their wash.[5] This development was copied widely in the canal world, where they were known as swift boats or fly-boats, but it took the young John Scott Russell to explain the phenomenon and show its limits.

Many people, with the day off work, took the opportunity to travel the short distance of 6 miles (9.7 km) by canal between Paisley and Johnstone.

[4] Even though the wharf was only 6 feet (1.8 m) deep, the coldness of the water and the sheer sides of the embankments compounded the problem that few people of the time could swim.

[12] In 1827, a second bill passed Parliament and gained royal assent on 14 June as the Glasgow, Paisley and Ardrossan Canal and Railway Act 1827 (7 & 8 Geo.

[12] This act allowed for the financing and construction of a railway from the Johnstone canal basin to Ardrossan.

Parliament dictated that due to the failure to complete the canal past Johnstone, that work on the railway should be started at the Ardrossan harbour end.

The railway, owned and operated by the canal company, was built to the Scotch gauge of 4 feet 6 inches (1,370 mm).

In the 1820s the canal company planned to build a railway between Johnstone and Ardrossan to finish the link.

[1] They raised further capital and started building the railway from Ardrossan; reaching Kilwinning before running out of money.

[1] In the 1830s they planned to turn their canal into a railway and complete the link from Kilwinning to Johnstone; but allowed the scheme to fold.