Glasgow and South Western Railway

The Glasgow and South Western Railway was the third largest of the five major Scottish railway companies before the 1923 Grouping, formed on October 28, 1850, through the merger of the Glasgow, Paisley, Kilmarnock and Ayr Railway with the Glasgow, Dumfries and Carlisle Railway. It served a triangular region of southwest Scotland bounded by Glasgow, Stranraer, and Carlisle, with a business built primarily on mineral traffic, especially coal, alongside passenger services, though its sparsely populated southern territories limited local traffic. The company allied with Englands Midland Railway to run express passenger trains to London in competition with the Caledonian Railway, before becoming a constituent of the London Midland and Scottish Railway in the 1923 grouping.