wherever it has been practicable, they have formed loading basins and wharves, connecting them by offsets with railways in the vicinity. The additional traffic resulting from this source has been very great." The Garnkirk and Glasgow Railway opened in 1831 and linking with other railways, it was the first railway that directly competed with the canal. Fearing disaster from this competition, "the company reduced their dues to about one-third of the rate which had been charged up till that time". However "although previously to the opening of the Garnkirk and Glasgow Railway ... the passage-boats rarely carried so many as 20,000 passengers in a year, yet, in the face of that great competition, the number of passengers has been gradually increasing, and [in 1845 or 1846] no fewer than 70,000 persons have been carried by the company's boats." Prosperity and taken over In 1846, an Act of Parliament authorised the amalgamation of the canal with the Forth and Clyde Canal, with the Forth and Clyde company paying £3,400 per Monkland share. The original shares had a face value of £100, but there had been some subdivision. In 1846 Lewis reported: "An extensive basin was lately formed at Dundyvan, for the shipment of coal and iron by the canal from the Wishaw and Coltness and the Monkland and Kirkintilloch railways; and boats to Glasgow take goods and passengers twice every day. [...] The revenue of the canal is estimated at £15,000 [...] per annum." Fullarton, publishing in 1846 says that "a very large sum has recently been expended by the company in the formation of new works, [which has included] additional reservoirs in the parish of Shotts, all uniting in the river Calder which flows into the canal at Woodhall, near Holytown, thereby insuring an abundant supply of water at all times". "There are three branch-canals from the main water-line, viz. one to Calder iron-works near Airdrie, about a mile [1.6 km] in length; another to Dundyvan iron-works, extending to about a quarter of a mile [400 m]; and a third to Gartsherrie works, about a mile [1.6 km] long." By the 1850s and 1860s, the canal was transporting over one million tonnes of coal and iron per year. An abortive plan to get to the Clyde The canal had originally been planned to stop short of central Glasgow, to avoid descending to the lower level there; a causeway was authorised,