Glasgow Queen Street railway station

Glasgow Queen Street
Scottish Gaelic: Sràid na Banrighinn
Glasgow Queen Street main concourse
Location
Place	Glasgow City Centre
Local authority	Glasgow City Council
Coordinates	55°51′44″N 4°15′04″W / 55.8622°N 4.2512°WCoordinates: 55°51′44″N 4°15′04″W / 55.8622°N 4.2512°W
Grid reference	NS591655
Operations
Station code	GLQ
Managed by	Abellio ScotRail
Number of platforms	9 (2 on low level)
Live arrivals/departures, station information and onward connections from National Rail Enquiries
Annual rail passenger usage*
2002/03	2.029 million
2004/05	3.731 million
2005/06	3.735 million
2006/07	14.053 million
2007/08	14.765 million
2008/09	17.363 million
2009/10	19.122 million
2010/11	19.742 million
2011/12	16.371 million
2012/13	16.452 million
2013/14	15.760 million
2014/15	16.959 million
Passenger Transport Executive
PTE	SPT
History
Original company	Edinburgh and Glasgow Railway (High Level) Glasgow City and District Railway (Low Level)
Pre-grouping	North British Railway
Post-grouping	LNER
21 February 1842	High Level Station opened[1]
15 March 1886	Low Level Station 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 Glasgow Queen Street from Office of Rail and Road statistics. Methodology may vary year on year.
UK Railways portal

Glasgow Queen Street (Scottish Gaelic: Sràid na Banrighinn) is a central Glasgow railway terminal in Glasgow, Scotland, the smaller of the city's two main line railway termini and the third busiest station in Scotland.^[2] It is between George Street to the south and Cathedral Street Bridge to the north, at the northern end of Queen Street adjacent to George Square.^[3] Queen Street station serves the Greater Glasgow conurbation's northern towns and suburbs, the Edinburgh shuttle, and is the terminus for all inter-city services to destinations in the North of Scotland.

History

The station was built by the Edinburgh and Glasgow Railway, and opened on 18 February 1842.^[1] In 1865 the E&GR was absorbed into the North British Railway, which became part of the LNER group in 1923.

The climb through the tunnel to Cowlairs is at 1 in 42 and until 1909 trains were hauled up on a rope operated by a stationary engine, although experiments were carried out using banking engines in 1844–48. In 1928 there was a railway accident causing 3 fatalities when a train leaving the station slipped to a standstill and rolled back into another train. Modern diesel trains have no difficulty with the climb.

The adjacent Buchanan Street station of the rival Caledonian Railway closed on 7 November 1966 as a result of the Beeching axe and its services to Stirling, Perth, Inverness, Dundee and Aberdeen transferred to Queen Street. This caused difficulties with longer trains, as Queen Street is in a confined position between George Square and the tunnel.

In the 1980s, HST were used on Cross Country and East Coast services ran by InterCity, having to use Platform 7 with the end of the train being close to the tunnel mouth.

Currently (2011), trains are usually of two to six coaches, running more frequently.

Services

Queen Street station's platforms are on two levels, with the High Level platforms running directly north-south, and the Low Level running east-west. They are connected by staircases at either end of the Low Level platforms, and by lifts accessible from Platform 7 on the High Level.

The typical Monday to Saturday service is, 8 trains per hour to Edinburgh Waverley, 4 via Falkirk High and the other 4 via Airdrie and Bathgate,

3 trains per hour to Cumbernauld (1 an hour extends to Falkirk Grahamston)

2 trains per hour to Anniesland via Maryhill.

3 trains per hour to Stirling (1 extends to Alloa and Dunblane)

1 train per hour to Aberdeen.

6 trains per day to Oban

3 trains per day to Mallaig

1 train every 3 hours to Inverness

2 trains per hour to Airdrie

2 trains per hour to Balloch

2 trains per hour to Helensburgh Central

1 train per day to London Euston (Except Saturday)

High level

The High Level station is the larger of the two levels, and is the terminus for the Edinburgh shuttles and all routes north of the Central Belt run by Abellio ScotRail diesel multiple units. The high level railway approaches the station building through the Queen Street Tunnel, which runs beneath the Buchanan Galleries shopping centre to the Sighthill area northeast of the city centre. Platforms 1–7 occupy the High Level, Platform 1 being at the western end of the trainshed, and being considerably shorter – it is usually only used for local stopping services.

Low level

Glasgow Suburban Electrification Commemorative Plaque at entrance to Platforms 8 and 9

Platforms 8 and 9 comprise the Low Level station, and it is the most central stop on the North Clyde Line of the Glasgow suburban electric network. Trains run frequently between Helensburgh, Balloch and Milngavie on the Firth of Clyde, towards Airdrie, on the edge of the Greater Glasgow and onward to Edinburgh via Bathgate and Livingston. The line is electrified; the fleet operating this route are Class 318s, Class 320s and Class 334s.

Services on the West Highland Line to Oban, Fort William and Mallaig occasionally use the Low Level station when the main route into the High Level is unavailable due to engineering work. As of September 2014, the Fort William to London Euston overnight sleeper also calls here instead of Westerton, eliminating the need for those travelling between Glasgow & Fort William on the sleeper to change there (alighting only southbound/boarding only northbound), the only locomotive-hauled train to call here.

The Low Level line between High Street, Queen Street and Charing Cross was built before the Glasgow Subway, making it the oldest underground railway in the city. In May–June 2014, work was carried out to redevelop the Low Level platforms, which now have new compliant seating.

Routes – past and present

• 

  Station entrance, George Street

• 

  Bilingual sign: English: "Welcome to Queen Street"; Gaelic: "Fàilte gu Sràid na Banrighinn".

• 

  George St entrance to the station, showing one of the food outlets

• 

  High platforms with two First ScotRail trains (Class 170 and Class 156)

• 

  A Class 320 train leaves the low level station (photo taken before 2014 redevelopment)

Signalling

Train arriving at Glasgow Queen Street

Queen Street signal box, opened in 1881, was on a gantry spanning the tracks close to the tunnel mouth. It closed on 26 February 1967 when control of the high level station was transferred to a panel in Cowlairs signal box. That box was superseded by the new Cowlairs signalling centre on 28 December 1998. This in turn was abolished in October 2013 and the station is now under the supervision of Edinburgh IECC (which will eventually become the Edinburgh Rail Operating Centre).

The low level station had two signal boxes, 'Queen Street West' and 'Queen Street East'. Both boxes were over the tracks and closed on 8 February 1960. The low level lines came under the control of Yoker Signalling Centre (IECC) on 19 November 1989.

Proposals

Various schemes to link Queen Street to Glasgow Central station have been considered, as passengers travelling from the north of Scotland to the south and vice versa via Glasgow have to traverse the city centre either on foot or by road. A bus link connects the two stations (which also calls at the city's Buchanan bus station), use of which is free to rail passengers making a cross-Glasgow transfer on a through ticket. Neither of Glasgow's main line termini are served by the Glasgow Subway, although a moving walkway was installed between Queen Street and the immediately adjacent Buchanan Street subway station during the system's modernisation in 1980, whilst St Enoch station is a short walk from Central.

The preferred solution to the problem is Crossrail, using a disused freight line that links High Street to the Gorbals area. This initiative was reviewed favourably, but progress has been stalled indefinitely as of 2009.

Minor refurbishment of the station has taken place over in recent years, which has seen the station internally repainted and paved with new flooring, and the CRT screens that displayed train timetables and passenger information were replaced with new LED information boards similar to those in Glasgow Central Station but smaller, in January 2008.

In August 2006 Network Rail revealed that it intends to redevelop Queen Street substantially, making use of the Hanover Street car park area to provide more retail space, and to upgrade the station's entrances, and to provide escalators down to the lower level platforms – at present there are only steep staircases at either end of Platforms 8/9, and lifts which have to be reached using a circuitous route via the main line platforms. More plans were unveiled in September 2011 by Network Rail, along with an announcement that the owner of the Buchanan Galleries shopping mall – Land Securities had been chosen as development partner for the station, which will see the existing 1970s hotel extension which currently fronts the George Square entrance of the station demolished and replaced by a glass atrium.^[4] The previous plans of developing the airspace rights above the North Hanover Street car park into an expanded retail and restaurant area will be carried forward – this will form part of the proposed extension to the Buchanan Galleries, which will gain direct access to the station concourse. The redevelopment, which is scheduled for completion in June 2019, will also include an extension of the high level platforms to accommodate the longer trains that will be introduced as part of the Edinburgh Glasgow Improvement Programme (EGIP).^[5]

In 2009, the Scottish Government announced that the Glasgow to Edinburgh via Falkirk Line will be electrified by 2016, meaning that overhead line electrification will be installed on the high level platforms of Queen Street. As part of this work, the High Level station will be closed for 20 weeks (from 20 March to 8 August 2016) to allow 1800m of track in Queen Street Tunnel to be replaced.^[6] Services will diverted over various routes during this period, with some trains running to/from the Low Level station and others to/from Central via Carmyle.

References

Notes

1. Butt (1995), page 103
2. Office of Rail Regulation, Station Usage
3. Google Maps listing.
4. "Network Rail announces Queen Street development partner". Retrieved 28 September 2011.
5. "We are redeveloping Queen Street station". Retrieved 7 March 2014.
6. "Glasgow Queen Street rail tunnel to close for 20 weeks"BBC News article 12 January 2016; Retrieved 25 March 2016

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.
• Yonge, John (May 1987). Gerald Jacobs, ed. British Rail Track Diagams - Book 1: ScotRail (1st ed.). Exeter: Quail Map Company. ISBN 0-9006-0948-6.
• Yonge, John (February 1993). Gerald Jacobs, ed. Railway Track Diagams - Book 1: Scotland and the Isle of Man (2nd ed.). Exeter: Quail Map Company. ISBN 0-9006-0995-8.
• Yonge, John (April 1996). Gerald Jacobs, ed. Railway Track Diagams - Book 1: Scotland and the Isle of Man (3rd ed.). Exeter: Quail Map Company. ISBN 1-8983-1919-7.
• Yonge, John (2007). Gerald Jacobs, ed. Railway Track Diagams - Book 1: Scotland & Isle of Man (Quail Track Plans) (fifth ed.). Bradford on Avon: Trackmaps (formerly Quail Map Co). ISBN 978-0-9549866-3-6. OCLC 79435248.

• Glasgow and District Transport Plans – 1951 with details of Queen Street and proposed new station