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The postcard's caption reads "This way to America - Rail to Machrihanish thence per Wireless Telegraph to New York" The old coal canal, running from the colliery to the Mill Dam and operated with three small barges, had opened in 1794 but had fallen into disuse and was eventually abandoned about 1856. The colliery changed hands in 1875 and the new owners, The Argyll Coal and Canal Company, needed a better way of sending coal to the town and set to build a 2’ 3” narrow gauge railway from the pit at Kilkivan to their coal depot at the east end of Argyll Street in Campbeltown, a distance of about 4¼ miles. Although not directly related to these matters, it is of passing interest that other eyes were on Machrihanish at this time, eight local businessmen having met together in Campbeltown’s Argyll Arms Hotel on Saturday, March 11, 1876, to resolve the establishment of a local golf club, Machrihanish being their eventual choice of ground. Later that year, during the laying out of the original 10-hole course on the machair, the bones and skulls of many of the Danes and Scots who had fought in The Battle of Machair Innean, fought in the ninth-century, were discovered on the site. Two more holes were added to the new golf course before the year was out and, in 1879, notable alterations were made to the course on the advice of veteran St. Andrews’ golfer Tom Morris who had commented on his first visit “The Almichty had gowff in his e’e when he made this place”. In 1889, the course made up to a full 18-holes and the course was redesigned in 1914 by three-times Open Championship winner J. H. Taylor and again, thirty years later, after World War II, by Sir Guy Campbell to give us the course layout of today. Work on the new railway commenced, at Trodigal and elsewhere along the route of the line, on Monday, July 24, 1876. The schooner “W.M.J.” under the command of Captain Lloyd, arrived from Briton Ferry, in Wales, with 21-foot lengths of rails on Tuesday, August 15, 1876. Three weeks later, on Saturday, September 2, 1876, the “Levonia” arrived from St. Malo with the sleepers. On Tuesday, November 7, 1876, the Campbeltown Company’s “Kintyre” unloaded the first locomotive, named “Pioneer” and built by Andrew Barclay & Company of Kilmarnock. “Pioneer” made her first outing on Christmas Day 1876, this was of course an ordinary working day in Scotland till 1958 and construction of the line was completed on Saturday, April 21, 1877. On Saturday, May 19, 1877, the “Gael” unloaded the first wagons which were quickly checked over and initiated the line’s opening to goods traffic on Wednesday, May 23, 1877. The line, excluding the cost of embankments, cuttings and bridges, cost about £900 per mile to lay - 63 tons of rails at 40 lb per yard weight; 2 tons 8 cwt of fish plates; 17 cwt of bolts; 2,200 sleepers at 3-foot intervals; 2 tons of spikes; 3,520 fencing stobs at 4 pence each; fence wire and staples at £12; forming and ballasting (6’ x 1’ = 2/3 cub. yd. per lin. yd.) at 3/- per yard. The only other narrow-gauge line to be built in Scotland was the 4-foot gauge Glasgow Underground “Subway”. The line would be extended a further half-mile to Drumlemble in 1881 when the Kilkivan pit became exhausted and then would have further extensions added in 1906 to take the line on to Machrihanish and to Campbeltown’s New Quay and, for passenger traffic, along Hall Street to the top of The Old Quay giving the line a final authorised length of 6 miles and 649 yards. |
