only branch that was built by the E&BR was to Uphall, and from there a mineral railway extension ran to the Binny Quarry, near Ecclesmachan. The main line to Bathgate was opened on 12 November 1849. The company had been encouraged by the E&GR, and the E&BR leased its line to the E&GR for 999 years from the date of opening. The lease charge was 4% of the capital cost of the line plus a proportion of receipts. As a shell company the E&BR Company remained in existence until the grouping of the railways in 1923 (see below). The initial stations from Bathgate Junction (near Ratho) were Broxburn, Houston, and Bathgate. Developments at Bathgate Bathgate was an established centre of traditional industries when the line was proposed, but the situation was revolutionised when James Young, an industrial chemist, had developed an industrial process of manufacturing paraffin from torbanite, a type of oil shale. He had obtained a patent for the process in October 1850, and the torbanite had been discovered on the Torbanehill estate, about halfway between Bathgate and Whitburn. Young joined in partnership with Edward William Binney and Edward Meldrum and the Bathgate Works started operations in February 1851. This was the first commercial oil works in the world. When the torbanite was exhausted, shale rocks were exploited, at Bathgate and elsewhere in the locality, and although they had an inferior oil content they were nonetheless commercially desirable. The Edinburgh and Glasgow Railway built a branch line from the E&BR line to Blackhall, connecting Young's oil processing plant; the line opened in 1850 and diverged from the E&BR immediately east of the Bathgate station. The Monkland Railways too wished to reach the area and they extended their line eastward from Blackstone Junction (on the former Slamannan Railway) and from Armadale, both routes reaching Bathgate in 1855, and connecting the town to Airdrie and Coatbridge, via the rope-worked Ballochney Railway section of the Monkland Railways. The rope worked sections were by-passed by the "new line" by 1859, but it was not until 1871 that a direct NBR line between Coatbridge and Glasgow was available. Numerous mineral branches were built from the E&BR line to nearby points of extraction. The North British Railway The Edinburgh and Glasgow was absorbed by the North British Railway on 1 August 1865; the E&GR had itself absorbed the Monkland Railways the previous day. In 1866