Opened in 1826 to the Scotch gauge of 4 ft 6 in, the Monkland & Kirkintilloch engineered by Thomas Grainger and John Miller was the first in Britain with the right to operate locomotives written into its Act of Parliament. With its specially Birkinshaw patent iron rails, similar to those on the Stockton & Darlington Railway, it was able to successfully operate locomotives, the first public railway in Scotland to do so.

It ran ten miles north-westward from collieries near Airdrie to the Forth and Clyde Canal at Kirkintilloch, ending the monopoly of high-cost coal suppliers in Glasgow and by means of the canal connection providing a convenient route for Monkland coal to the Edinburgh market. A passenger service was initially horse-drawn, but steam locomotives made their debut in 1831. By the 1840s the Railway was modernised with conversion to standard gauge and it was soon connected into surrounding networks.

The passenger service was replaced by other routes as early as 1851, and the Monkland & Kirkintilloch was absorbed into the Monkland Railways in 1848 and finally absorbed into the North British in 1865. After many years as a quiet backwater of the Lanarkshire freight lines during which running rights brought onto it locomotives belonging to coal-owner William Baird and Company (including until 1958 an ex-Great Eastern Railway J15 0-6-0), closure of the main line between Bedlay Colliery and the junction with the Edinburgh & Glasgow (also engineered by Grainger and Miller) at Garngaber came in November 1965, the basin at Kirkintilloch lingering on to April 1966, though three short M&K sections were incorporated into lines in the Coatbridge area that are in continuing mainline operation on ScotRail’s Helensburgh-Edinburgh route, the Scottish Central used by ScotRail and soon the new Grand Union Stirling-Euston route and the Sunnyside-Whifflet diversionary line.

Much of the trackbed lies under a modern distributor road near Lenzie or is in use as a footpath. The place-name Whitegates recalls a level crossing, and a plaque was installed there in 1981 by Strathkelvin District Council and British Rail to commemorate its history. A signalbox provided by the Caledonian Railway for the junction with the Scottish Central at Garnqueen South now controls movements at the main station of the Bo'ness & Kinneil Railway.