Argyle Street railway station

Argyle Street
Argyle Street railway station exterior, on Argyle Street
Location
Place	Glasgow
Local authority	Glasgow
Coordinates	55°51′25″N 4°15′04″W / 55.857°N 4.251°WCoordinates: 55°51′25″N 4°15′04″W / 55.857°N 4.251°W
Grid reference	NS592649
Operations
Station code	AGS
Managed by	Abellio ScotRail
Owned by	Network Rail
Number of platforms	2
Live arrivals/departures, station information and onward connections from National Rail Enquiries
Annual rail passenger usage*
2002/03	0.363 million
2004/05	0.467 million
2005/06	0.574 million
2006/07	0.617 million
2007/08	0.606 million
2008/09	0.912 million
2009/10	0.735 million
2010/11	0.784 million
2011/12	1.196 million
2012/13	1.337 million
2013/14	1.370 million
Passenger Transport Executive
PTE	SPT
History
Original company	British Rail
5 November 1979	Opened[1]
National Rail – UK railway stations
* Annual estimated passenger usage based on sales of tickets in stated financial year(s) which end or originate at Argyle Street from Office of Rail and Road statistics. Methodology may vary year on year.
UK Railways portal

Argyle Street railway station is a station in the City Centre of Glasgow, Scotland, on the Argyle Line, which connects the North Clyde lines at Partick with Rutherglen in the south-east of the city. The station is located below the thoroughfare whose name it bears. It has a narrow and often crowded island platform. It serves the Argyle Street shopping precinct as well as the St Enoch Centre. Along with Dalmarnock and Anderston, No services call at this station on a Sunday before 10am or after 6pm

History

The Glasgow Central Railway was formed in 1888 to link the Clydesdale Junction Railway and Lanarkshire and Ayrshire Railway with the Lanarkshire and Dunbartonshire Railway. By the time it was opened between 1894 and 1897, the GCR had been taken over by the Caledonian Railway. Although there were three stations under Argyle Street - Anderston, Glasgow Central and Glasgow Cross, there was no station on the site of the current station.

The line closed in 1964, but it was re-opened by British Rail in 1979^[1] and operated by the Scottish Region of British Railways by arrangement with the Greater Glasgow PTE. Although the Central Low Level station was re-opened, Glasgow Cross was not re-opened; instead the new Argyle Street station was constructed, midway between Glasgow Cross and Glasgow Central.

Station access

When the 1979 re-opening took place, a simple island platform was required, but footings of adjacent buildings and other physical constraints limited the available tunnel width for the new station. Moreover, the roadway above had not yet been pedestrianised, and street access and station building construction was not acceptable within the road limits. Accordingly, station building premises were constructed within the ordinary building line on the south side of the street; access to the platforms is via Argyle Street and Osborne Street into the ticket hall, then down an escalator into the station lower level, below track level. A passageway then leads under the westbound track and a second escalator leads up to the island platform which is located directly under Argyle street.

Lift access was not considered on the grounds of expense and the physical limits of the platform space.

During the 2006/7 escalator renewal work the only passenger access to the lower level (under platform) of the station was via the steep emergency exit steps.

Ticket barriers came into operation on 17 June 2011.

Disabled access

This station does not have any disabled access due to the narrowness of the island platform; this is the source of many complaints. Installation of lift access would require platform widening, which would in turn require widening of the tunnel, requiring massive alteration to the buildings adjacent.

Services

From 1979

Mondays to Saturdays

• 3 per hour - Dalmuir to Hamilton Circle (clockwise)
• 3 per hour - Dalmuir to Hamilton Circle (anti-clockwise)
• 1 per hour Limited Stop - Milngavie to Lanark

2014

On Monday to Saturdays, trains leave approximately every ten minutes, destined for Dalmuir, Milngavie, Partick, Yoker, Singer, Lanark, Larkhall, Hamilton Central, Whifflet and Motherwell. During peak hours, services to Cumbernauld via Coatbridge and Carstairs are also available.

On Sundays, no services call here before 10am or after 6pm so services on Sundays are Balloch-Motherwell, Milngavie-Motherwell or Lanark, and Partick-Larkhall.

2015

The basic service still runs every 10 minutes each way, but southbound trains now run onto the Whifflet Line rather than to Lanark following a major timetable recast. Likewise on Sundays the frequency remains the same but Balloch trains run either to Motherwell via Whifflet or to Larkhall (hourly to each).

Gallery

• 

  The island platform at Argyle Street station

• 

  Rear entrance on Osborne Street

• 

  Argyle Street station concourse

• 

  The top of the escalators

References

1. Butt (1995)

Sources

• Butt, R. V. J. (1995). The Directory of Railway Stations: details every public and private passenger station, halt, platform and stopping place, past and present (1st ed.). Sparkford: Patrick Stephens Ltd. ISBN 1-8526-0508-1. OCLC 60251199.
• Jowett, Alan (March 1989). Jowett's Railway Atlas of Great Britain and Ireland: From Pre-Grouping to the Present Day (1st ed.). Sparkford: Patrick Stephens Ltd. ISBN 1-8526-0086-1. OCLC 22311137.
• Jowett, Alan (2000). Jowett's Nationalised Railway Atlas (1st ed.). Penryn, Cornwall: Atlantic Transport Publishers. ISBN 0-9068-9999-0. OCLC 228266687.
• RAILSCOT on Glasgow Central Railway