and Leith, correspondingly for goods. The City of Glasgow Union Railway was slow in completing and well over budget; but the NBR hoped to get a decent goods station at College, so commitment was made to building the Coatbridge to Glasgow line. Throughout 1868 steady progress was being made in getting the financial state of the company under control, and from January 1869 it was announced that cash dividends and payment on the warrants would be forthcoming. In 1870, the Coatbridge to Glasgow line opened, at first to Gallowgate until College station opened in 1871, when the NBR could run a viable Edinburgh to Glasgow passenger service via Airdrie. Through running by the North Eastern From 1 June 1869, the North Eastern Railway started running its engines through to Edinburgh on passenger trains; the arrangement had been agreed as part of the Border Counties arrangements in 1862. From July, the NER was running all the through passenger trains. The NBR paid the NER one shilling a mile and retained its share of the receipts. North to Aberdeen The NBR had long aspired to reach Aberdeen independently, and the 1862 acquisition of the Edinburgh, Perth and Dundee Railway had been a step towards that. An agreement arising from the 1866 amalgamation of the Caledonian Railway and the Scottish North Eastern Railway entitled the NBR to propose a northward line without Parliamentary opposition from the Caledonian. Now in November 1870 the NB issued a prospectus for such a line, the North British, Arbroath and Montrose Railway; its budget was to be £171,580 (), and it would include the Montrose and Bervie Railway which had opened in 1865. On 18 August 1872, Parliamentary authorisation was given for the absorption by the NBR of the Leslie Railway, a branch line at Markinch. Fife lines In the west of Fife, early mineral workings had resulted in the establishment of a number of mineral tramways and short railways around Dunfermline. These merged to form the West of Fife Mineral Railway, and that company was absorbed by the NBR in 1862. With the acquisition of the Edinburgh, Perth and Dundee Railway in 1862, the NBR had acquired a line to Dunfermline from Thornton, passing through terrain that was rich in coal. When the Edinburgh and Glasgow Railway was taken over, the NBR also got hold of the Stirling to Dunfermline line, passing through Alloa, and further consolidating