from the city, and its line made a large circuit round the north of Glasgow. There was still no attempt at a suburban service: the first station from Glasgow was Maryhill, then an isolated village, and then Dalmuir. The GD&HR joined with the Edinburgh and Glasgow Railway at Cowlairs, and was absorbed by that company in 1862; the E&GR was itself absorbed by the North British Railway in 1865. On the east side, the Monklands area around Airdrie and Coatbridge had become the centre of the iron industries; it had extensive seams of good quality coal and of blackband ironstone. The wealthy industrial district was in the area served by the Caledonian Railway and the North British Railway sought to build a direct line to Coatbridge from Glasgow, to participate in the available business. It opened its Coatbridge branch in 1871. The Glasgow terminus was called College, at a site vacated for the purpose by the University of Glasgow; it was not convenient for the city centre. The NBR had collaborated with the Glasgow and South Western Railway (G&SWR) in the construction of the City of Glasgow Union Railway, which also opened to College in 1871, crossing the River Clyde and linking the G&SWR network with the NBR line. At last the separate radiating railways around Glasgow were becoming linked, and a suburban passenger railway, and the exchange of goods traffic, could be thought of. The NBR network now developed west of the city, driven chiefly by the expansion westwards of heavy industry and of docking facilities for steamers. The Stobcross Railway opened in 1874 to serve the new Queen's Dock at Stobcross, but this line too made a large circuit of the city to reach the dock. The Glasgow, Yoker and Clydebank Railway was opened in 1882 to serve a shipyard and other industrial sites that were relocating. The passenger service on the Yoker line was not connected to the rest of the railway network. A line through the centre of the city This fractured set of lines frustrated the development of the areas served by the NBR. Moreover, Queen Street station, which was considered cramped from the outset, was now impossibly congested with terminating trains and a goods station, and there was no possibility of increasing line capacity on the Cowlairs incline. The NBR set about the task of connecting the lines east and west of the city.