and their friends was run from Dumfries to Annan. The line opened to the public from Dumfries to Gretna on 23 August 1848; operation and provision of rolling stock was in the hands of the GPK&AR, who also underwrote any loss, or profit, on the operation. Running arrangements into Carlisle had not been finalised, so the passenger trains only ran as far as Gretna, from where passengers could change trains and continue in Caledonian Railway trains. At Dumfries the station was a temporary structure south of Annan Road. On 15 October 1849, the line was opened from Dumfries to Closeburn, and on 20 May 1850, the final section was opened from Closeburn to Horsecleugh, where an end-on junction was made with the GPK&AR, which opened from Auchinleck to that point on the same day. There was no station at Horsecleugh; it was probably an arbitrary boundary point. its location is thought to be at the Dumfries Road bridge. The authorising Acts of Parliament of 1846 and 1847 had confirmed that the GD&CR would merge with the GPK&AR on completion of the GD&CR line; in fact the GPK&AR as senior partner absorbed the GD&CR, and changed its name to the Glasgow & South Western Railway. On 28 October 1850 therefore, the Glasgow and South Western railway started its existence, and the GD&CR was dissolved. The G&SWR The new company had finally won its battle for a through line, though it had lost the race for primacy; the Caledonian Railway had a much shorter route to Glasgow and Edinburgh, and the North British Railway had been running through trains from Edinburgh to London on the east coast route via Berwick-upon-Tweed for two years. On 26 June 1873 a line was opened from Barrhead to Kilmarnock, shortening the Glasgow to Kilmarnock run, and therefore the Glasgow to Carlisle run, considerably. The new company needed an English partner to make a viable service to London, and eventually it found one, when the Midland Railway built its line to Carlisle, opening in 1875/6. From that time a firm alliance was formed, and express passenger trains to London ran over the Dumfries line and via Leeds on the Midland line, reaching London at St Pancras station. The G&SWR expanded south-westward from Glasgow, where more traffic—mineral as much as passenger—was available than in the moorlands of Nithsdale. The G&SWR continued in existence until the "grouping" of the