Baffling At Barnhill : Confusing At Cathcart
Glasgow's suburban train services are complex and baffling to newcomers and visitors; as lines have re-opened and services have improved things have become even more baffling. Services are particularly complex on the lines coloured DARK BLUE on the map above.
Here is the map that accompanies some of the information.
It is shown here in two bits with its continuation eastbound shopping below.
And here us just a teensy chunk of the timetable.
And that is not the whole story. On the above table, services via Bathgate to Edinburgh are only shown with selected stops; you need another map ....
... and another table for the whole picture. This is to cope with the huge number of stops served on a train, for example, from Helensburgh to Edinburgh!
But this blog concerns, in part, services from Milngavie, ancestral home of Mrs fbb. For many a long year there has been a train every 30 minutes via Glasgow Queen Street Low Level to Springburn. Recent developments have added a Monday to Friday peak hour service to Airdrie and Edinburgh giving a train from Milngavie every 15 minutes.
The map above only gives limited information west of the centre of Glasgow. So you need two maps and two vast timetables to get the full picture.
All trains from Milngavie use the line via Queen Street Low Level ...
... which they have done since 1960 when the Blue Train electrics arrived.
On the contentious 'Get Glasgow Moving' map the service from Dalmuir and Milngavie is coloured YELLOW.
All train on this route now run into Central Low Level and beyond, thus diverting passengers who have used Queen Street for 66 years!
But it is how they get there that will challenge even more users, IF it ever happens.
After Jordanhill and just before Hyndland, train will turn left and run via the long-closed Botanic Gardens ...
... and the long-closed Kelvinbridge ...
... to join the former tunnels under Central.
Here, courtesy of Google StreetView is that left hander just before Hyndland station (Below, bottom left).
The turn would involve demolishing those new-ish grey-roofed buildings, part of Gartnavel Hospital and dropping down in height to that leafy scar running to the right of the blocks to be demolished.
The knowledgeable might think that the route follows that curved line of tenements on the right. In fact there used to be a short branch to the original Hyndland station ...
... shown below with a steam train in situ.
A church is still there ...
... and opposite the church is the appropriately named Station Gardens ...
... but we are not going that way because it always was a dead end terminus station.
No, sir; we track northbound with the hospital to our left.
It is here that the re-opening brigade will have to lay their double track and overhead string electrified at 25 kilovolts. fbb is sure that the hospital management will not mind a bit.
We come to the Great Western Road A82 which we crossed riding southbound at Anniesland some time ago (see first "yellow route" map above).
Here once stood Kelvinside station and the entrance to a short tunnel.. 
Perhaps we need another map.
fbb is sure that passengers from Milngavie and Dalmuir plus intermediate stations will really appreciate the more wiggly and thus more tedious route to where they don't want to go in central Glasgow.
The Great Western Road runs diagonally past Kelvinside station. Blue lines are still open, red are very much closed.
Kelvinside station building is still there c/w the tunnel mouth ...
... and it looks very grand as a posh restaurant.
Our re-opened yellow route then curves round to aim south again for the former Kirklee station.
Kelvinside and Kirklee are not on the proposed map of the yellow line.
The approach to Kirklee from the north seems to need some demolition!
But the bridge abutments are still there!
A turn eastbound takes the line in tunnel to Botanic Gardens, then southbound again via Kelvinbridge.
Today's Kelvinbridge area is almost unrecognisable compared with the old picture from above ...
... with the main girder being the last remnant.
And how you would get a double track railway from Kelvinbridge (below, top right) ...
... to Exhibition Centre bottom left is beyond the wit, the knowledge and the remote investigation skills of your inquisitive blogger. It is also, fbb suggests, beyond any conceivable bank balance of Strathclyde PTE, Glasgow City Council, the Scottish Government, the UK Governments and a whole cadre if Russian oligarchs.
You would be VERY surprised if this yellow route EVER happened.
There will be more from Glasgow next week.
Next Variety blog : Sunday 15th Feb
fbb has clearly forgotten there is a disused tunnel under Kelvingrove Park from Kelvinbridge to Stobcross (aka Exhibition Centre) but alterations at the latter when the Argyle Line opened may make its re-use difficult.
ReplyDeleteIt surfaced briefly to pass under the Queen Street line, still visible today https://maps.app.goo.gl/uhWwMP7dV3zSG24A9
After the new Hyndland station was opened as part of the "Blue Train" electrification, the site of the old one became a depot or stabling sidings and continued as such for many years. Of course that was before the North Side and South Side routes were linked. A point too that there was a short branch to a terminus at Bridgeton, originally it was proposed that this would be linked to the Central low level line, but that didn't happen and it was closed - late 1980s perhaps?
ReplyDeleteBridgeton Central (on the Queen St line) was also used for stabling after closure to passengers. I think it remained open for a while after Bridgeton Cross on the Argyle line reopened. They were literally on opposite sides of the road.
ReplyDelete