 There were serious difficulties at the time of opening about a commitment to lease the railway, but it finally opened throughout in 1852.There was a branch to Tillicoultry, and the Devon Valley Railway built a line from there to Kinross..

A predecessor line, the Alloa Railway, had been developed as a horse-operated waggonway in the eighteenth century, bringing coal from the hinterland to Alloa and Clackmannan harbours; in its day the line was technologically advanced, but it was eclipsed by the modern Stirling and Dunfermline line.The Alva Railway built a short branch line from Cambus, on the Stirling and Dunfermline line, opening in 1863.