A canal had been proposed in 1817, but a more realistic idea was formed in 1825 when Dundee Burgh Council decided to fund a survey for a railway. Charles Landale was commissioned to undertake the survey. (He was later described as "an apothecary" by General Pasley. Landale proposed a route that passed through a gap in the hills formed by the Glack of Newtyle; the summit of the route was to be at above sea level. Railway locomotives were primitive and inefficient at this early date and Landale's route involved rope-worked inclined planes: one (the "Law Incline") climbing immediately from the Dundee terminal, a level section, a second climb (the "Balbeuchly incline"), another level section, and a third incline (the "Hatton incline") descending to Newtyle. There was no community at Newtyle at that time; the location was simply a railhead. Moreover, the Dundee terminal was not close to the harbour, or even the waterfront, at Dundee.