The Anonymous Widower

Glasgow Crossrail

I saw this bus at Glasgow Central station, whilst I was awaiting a friend to go to the Games.

The Bus Connection Between The Two Stations

It connects the station to the other main one at Glasgow Queen Street.

It may work well, but it is needed in that Glasgow has effectively two rail networks; one going south and west from Central and another going east and north from Queen Street. This is illustrated, if you book a train from say Carlisle to the North of Scotland, where you either go via Edinburgh or use the bus to get across Glasgow.

London is adding the east-west cross city Crossrail to go with the current north-south Thameslink, which is being augmented and extended. Cross city routes have one big advantage in addition to the obvious one of linking places on either side of the city together, and that is that terminal platforms in city centres can be released for other purposes. Effectively in London, about half of the Midland Main Line platforms in St. Pancras, were released for Eurostar and High Speed services to Kent, by moving many services to Thameslink, where they effectively terminated at places like Brighton.

But it’s not just in London, that this technique of using a cross-city link to improve services and increase capacity is used.

1. Liverpool has linked the Northern and Wirral lines to those going south through a tunnel, which also allowed the old Liverpool Central station to be redeveloped on its prime site as Central Village.
2. Manchester is linking Piccadilly and Victoria stations, by means of new track and a bridge to create the Northern Hub.
3. Cardiff, Bristol, Birmingham and Leeds don’t really have the two station problem, but many of them pair up services to save terminal platforms. The Valley and Local Cardiff routes are extensive and many services are end-to-end, stopping at Cardiff in the centre.

Obviously, as there are a lot of buildings in the way between Glasgow’s two station, a direct rail link would have to be tunnelled.

As I walked around Glasgow, I couldn’t help noticing two impressive structures. The first was the City Union Bridge.

And the second was this viaduct across the centre of the city.

They were both part of the original City Union Line, which is now used for freight and empty stock movements. But it does appear to me to go from east to south across the city.

I had read about Glasgow Crossrail before, but I hadn’t realised that the missing link was so impressive and well-maintained. The Wikipedia article says this about the link.

Since the 1970s, it has been widely recognised that one of the main weaknesses of the railway network in Greater Glasgow is that rail services from the South (which would normally terminate at Central main line station) cannot bypass Glasgow city centre and join the northern railway network which terminates at Glasgow Queen Street station – and vice-versa for trains coming from the North. At present rail users who wish to travel across Glasgow have to disembark at either Central or Queen Street and traverse the city centre by foot, or by road.

Looking at the proposed project, it does seem that it might solve a few obvious problems with the rail system in Glasgow.

The proposal also includes the reopening of Cumberland Street railway station in the Gorbals, opening the area up to the passenger railway network for the first time since the 1960s and a link to the Glasgow subway at West Street station.

Amongst other developments the ability to go between the West Coast Main Line and the North of Scotland was listed.

I would be interesting to see the costs and benefits for Glasgow Crossrail.

On the first night at the Games, I went to the athletics and afterwards I needed to get to back to Edinburgh. The trains were totally overloaded and in a bit of chaos. Surely, Glasgow Crossrail might have allowed direct trains from the Hampden area to Edinburgh, which would have eased the problem, even if it meant a change of train at Central.

July 29, 2014 - Posted by AnonW | Transport/Travel | Glasgow, Structures, Trains, Two Days At The Commonwealth Games