Overview of Carstairs Junction

A small village in South Lanarkshire, Carstairs Junction lies a mile (1.5 km) southeast of Carstairs and 5 miles (8 km) east of Lanark. The village developed in association with the Caledonian railway whose station here was opened in 1848 at a major junction on the routes between Glasgow and Edinburgh. It was here that coaches were attached or detached en route to different destinations, and thus Carstairs became one of the most important junctions on the Scottish railway network. Electrification of the line in 1991, and the introduction of fast through-trains, removed the need for combining and splitting trains. In the 1920s a State Hospital for the criminally insane was built nearby.