Caledonian Railway branches in South Lanarkshire

This article traces the Caledonian Railway branches in South Lanarkshire.

South Lanarkshire contained a huge resource of coal reserves, and the collieries needed an efficient transport medium to get the mineral to market. The Caledonian Railway, in association with friendly independent promoters, generated a network of lines in South Lanarkshire. New lines were constructed right up to 1905, but in the subsequent decades the coal extraction declined and the railway activity with it.

The lines progressively closed completely, with the sole exceptions of the Lanark branch line, and the twenty-first century re-opening of the Larkhall branch.

The geographical scope of this article is the area south of the Hamilton - Motherwell - Carstairs line, as far south-west as Darvel and Muirkirk.