Coal and iron deposits were being worked on a small scale in the Slamannan area, about halfway between Airdrie and Linlithgow; it was then in Stirlingshire, now in Falkirk District. Seeing the success of the other railways, businessmen interested in the pits promoted a railway to open up their own district, and they formed the "Slamannan Railway Company". It was to run from a junction with the Ballochney Railway near Arbuckle, north-east of Airdrie, to a wharf on the Union Canal at Causeway End (nowadays spelt Causewayend), 23 miles (38 km) from Edinburgh. Thus it would give transport access for pits on the line to Glasgow (over the Ballochney and Monkland and Kirkintilloch lines) and to Edinburgh, by transshipping to the Union Canal at Causewayend.