Greenock Princes Pier was a railway station serving Greenock, Renfrewshire, Scotland, originally as part of the Greenock and Ayrshire Railway. It was approached by a tunnel sloping downhill under Greenock's west end, with railway sidings before the line crossed Brougham Street bridge over the main road to Gourock. The station was set on an embankment on the approach to Prince's Pier, with a line curving down to serve Albert Harbour.

The Glasgow and South Western Railway (G&SWR) was a railway company in Scotland. It served a triangular area of south-west Scotland between Glasgow, Stranraer and Carlisle. It was formed on 28 October 1850 by the merger of two earlier railways, the Glasgow, Paisley, Kilmarnock and Ayr Railway and the Glasgow, Dumfries and Carlisle Railway. Already established in Ayrshire, it consolidated its position there and extended southwards, eventually reaching Stranraer. Its main business was mineral traffic, especially coal, and passengers, but its more southerly territory was very thinly populated and local traffic, passenger and goods, was limited, while operationally parts of its network were difficult.