In the first outing for my “new to me” (second hand) Gopro brand Gopro, I go for a bike ride along most of the line between East Kilbride and Blantyre. This line was closed to passengers in 1924 and to freight in 1935, although a few specials used the line after this date, with the last train finally running in 1939. Since then the trackbed has been heavily encroached on by buildings in both towns, but some of the line through East Kilbride is now a cycle path. The line between the towns runs through farmland and is just about walkable with sturdy boots, but as I found out, cycling it can be difficult. The civil engineering highlight of the line is the Rotten Calder Viaduct, of which only the pillars remain. The line joins the Hamilton-Glasgow line just east of Blantyre station. If it had remained open, it would be a handy route to get between East Kilbride and Hamilton and on to Motherwell, but sadly reopening is now impossible due to the number of buildings on the trackbed. Today the only public transport option to travel between East Kilbride and Hamilton is the bus.
good morning YouTube uh today I’m at Isl bride station which is um if you look over the having a brand new um station building built as part of the electrification project so the wires are up uh there’s a brand new station at Hermar is the next stop down the line and uh East Combine is obviously getting a new station building the electric trains are due to come in service in December um they’ve just finished a 3monish line closure uh to get all the wires up so they’re obviously finishing building this station new station building here but this station um clearly a terminus now it didn’t always used to be a terminus station these lines used to carry on through that building uh all the way to uh Hamilton so today we’re going to take a bike ride along the line see what’s left um of what used to be the the railway here let’s go so this is quite a curious feature here because we’ve walked through there’s a a sheltered housing complex between the station and where I am now this has obviously been a railway bridge but it’s it’s been completely filled in underneath so we’re going to follow the line that way and at the end of that car park there’s another buried bridge [Music] heat heat heat heat [Music] heat heat heat heat heat heat so the cycle path has ended in this industrial estate the track med’s actually down in that cutting uh which is very overgrown and not cyclable so we’ll try and catch up with it later down further down so the line here has come basically through the middle of that premiering and it’s going to go down here and underneath uh the dual carriageway down there somewhere so I followed this road down um from the premier and found this what’s been a bridge abutment um quite obviously that’s all overgrown up the top and uncyclable that comes across here to this and it carries on off in the countryside i’m going to have a look up here and see if we can get up on top of that right so we’ve climbed up to the top of this embankment uh the bridge is over there that’s uh disappearing off into the countryside i’m not sure how cyclable this is going to be i might have to go back down on the road um and just follow the railway on the road uh cuz this is basically just going into farmer’s fields where it is so I’ve come back down to the main road but basically that tree line there is where the track bed is right so the basically the tracks coming up through here through here if I turn around uh that this cutting here uh that’s the line carrying on up there i want to be careful about taking pictures here because this is the bottom of somebody’s garden but if you look just in these trees there’s a bridge pillar there so there’s been a vioaduct uh completely inaccessible now it’s it’s in the woods in there somewhere right so I found a way down to this river and there’s pillars of obviously what’s been a vioideuct here it’s hard to see them through the trees um but yeah that’s that’s quite impressive actually so the varuct is behind us this path is carrying on along the uh trap bed so let’s see how far we can get on it heat [Laughter] [Laughter] heat heat [Laughter] heat heat so we’re currently the bottom of this estate and the East Co expressway is basically sitting on top of the track bed so um obviously I can’t cycle up there um I’m going to try and find where the line joins onto the existing railway so upon checking the maps the track is actually coming pretty much following the route of this slipway going across this roundabout and disappearing up that hedge over there so again I’ve come around the back of a I think some houses here and I think the railway is going off somewhere in that direction vaguely but obviously I can’t cycle through all this foliage so I’ve found a railway um so somewhere I’m on the foot path side of the bridge you can’t really get over there cuz it’s just road have to be quick for that but somewhere over there uh you’ll have the line coming from the right it’s turning off and joining the railway it’s really hard to see there’s a train run yeah so it’ll be coming from the right somewhere and joining on that way so that’s it that’s the end of my uh little adventure um if you like this video click up here somewhere for more and if you enjoyed it give it a like and I’ll see you in the next one