GeoGraph - photograph every grid square

Ashieburn Quarry branch junction

There are a main road, a canal, a railway siding and three railway lines in this photograph. The fence post and block of stone on the extreme right are the parapet of a bridge formerly carrying the Caledonian line from Muirkirk to Lanark, on which the photographer was standing. Running parallel with this line and at a lower level from the left is Baird's Glenbuck railway and the branch siding to Ashieburn Quarry can be seen curving from it in the middle of the picture towards the Caledonian bridge. The Muirkirk Canal can also be seen, at first on the right of Baird's line and then turning sharply left to pass under it where half a dozen old sleepers have been placed so that the latter may be used by farm vehicles. The canal then turns right, where a dead tree is lying in it, to parallel the River Ayr, which is below the trees on the left. The canal left the river roughly where the trees end in the distance. In front of the grassy hump and passing close to two slightly closer trees is the valley of the Ashaw Burn (note different spelling) and the canal crossed this on an aqueduct according to the 1860 OS map but there is no sign of this now. (In contrast, at least one aqueduct survives closer to Muirkirk.) The A70 road, with a blue car, can be seen on the left above the trees, and higher up still, a faint brown mark just below the skyline, is the line of the Spireslack - Muirkirk line, under construction by the Caledonian Railway during the first decade of the 20th century but which was never opened to traffic; most of the route has since been opencasted away by the mining that darkens the whole of the background. The grey and brown blobs in the distance to the right mark the opencast site entrance and were originally the road access to the Viaduct Mine, a private drift mine near the Ponesk Viaduct on the Spireslack line.