Glasgow voices rail station fears

Glasgow City Council has voiced concern about Network Rail’s plan to upgrade the Edinburgh-Glasgow rail service, saying it threatens the future of a number of the city’s rail stations.

Network Rail’s £1bn Edinburgh-Glasgow Improvement Programme (EGIP) will see 350km of the central belt’s railway electrified, including the  Edinburgh-Glasgow main line. Train service frequencies between the two cities will rise from every 15 minutes to every ten minutes.

Glasgow supports the electrification plan but not the frequency increase. It believes Network Rail is considering removing Anniesland and Falkirk Grahamston services from Glasgow Queen Street High Level station in order to accommodate the additional Edinburgh trains.

Electric Falkirk Grahamston-Glasgow services could be rerouted into Queen Street Low Level via a reversal at Springburn. But Glasgow believes the services are expected to run non-stop between Springburn and Queen Street Low Level.

“It appears likely that there will be few, if any, trains stopping at Barnhill, Alexandra Parade and Duke Street stations [which lie between Springburn and Queen Street Low Level] on completion of EGIP,” it says.

As for the Queen Street-Anniesland service, the council says the plan post-EGIP “appears to entail running trains on a shuttle basis between Ashfield and Anniesland”, where Glasgow passengers would have to change to access Queen Street Low Level. The city council says the service would be “considerably longer than at present and will be much slower than if undertaken by car or even by bus”.

A number of the stations on both lines are among the nine Glasgow stations listed in Transport Scotland’s Rail 2014 consultation as being located within one mile of another station. Scottish transport minister this week denied that the list amounted to a closure programme. “We have no intention of closing stations anywhere in Scotland,” he told MSPs.

The first round of consultation on the EGIP plans closed this week. An NR spokesman said  work on timetables and stopping patterns was ongoing. A second, more detailed phase of consultation will be launched this summer.

LTT's holding it's 11th Annual Rail Stations Conference on the 22nd February