GLASGOW | Subway and Urban Rail

[Kolothos]

The eastern ends of the Argyle Line, in the towns on the fringes of Greater Glasgow. The line has several branches here, and it serves much of this part of Greater Glasgow, bringing commuters into the section of track under Argyle Street in Central Glasgow.
Hamilton Central

Motherwell (also served by Virgin, CrossCountry, East Coast and TransPenine intercity services)

Larkhall (opened in 2005, on the sit of the historical station, as part of an extension of the Argyle Line into Larkhall)


And, as a bonus..

Balloch - North Clyde Line - On the banks of Loch Lomond, the northern terminus of the North Clyde.
image hosted on flickr

Helensburgh Central - North Clyde Line - The western terminus of the North Clyde, at the mouth of the Gareloch.


The trains in Glasgow can take you around the vastly varied locations within Greater Glasgow. It's amazing to have such an extensive system. To many, you might just see it as another heavy rail line, and the Scottish Government certainly do. But I'd really love to see it return to SPT control. If this were in Germany, it'd be considered an S-Bahn.

[Kolothos]

Springburn - North Clyde Line Cumbernauld Line


The terminus of the Springburn branch of the North Clyde. Provides interchange with the Queen Street to Cumbernauld line, which is set to be electrified, and re-routed under Glasgow to a new Hyndland terminus in a few years time.

[Chris99]

The good news is the Cumbernauld electrification will take place within the next 18 months, in time for the Commonwealth Games.

[Kolothos]

The old 'Blue trains' towards the end of their career on the Cathcart circle.

[Kolothos]

Subway Extension - It's something that has been brought up many times since the Subway first opened.

While we do have such a fantastic urban railway network, nothing comes close to the rapid nature of the Subway, with it's high frequency service. Over the years, a number of proposals have been mulled over. Look at this map here, which shows plans for extensions of the Subway over the years, some using existing railway infrastructure, others physically extending the Subway, and others being brand new tunneled lines:


The most recent proposals included a brand new Eastern circle, costing around £3bn:


And a new Subway service, presumably sharing with Scotrail trains between Bridgeton and the SECC, between the SECC and Parkhead (using an existing tunnel into Parkhead) in time for the 2014 Commonwealth Games, although in my view, it's a generally shit idea:


In the end though, it was decided that any extensions were not needed at the present moment, and that the current line was in desperate need of some investment, so the current £300m project is to be completed first before any extension plans are considered.

With the new Fastlink line opening in 2014, the future of rapid transit in Glasgow will most likely be trams/light rail.

[Kolothos]

It seems one of London's infamous 'bendy buses' made it's way up north. I spotted this in town the other day. And thankfully there are enough bus spotters in Glasgow to take photos of it (because I ain't going down that route)! Note that the destination board still has the TfL font.

image hosted on flickr


But, I could still count the number of multiple exit buses in Glasgow on one hand! I'd love to see more of these types of buses employed by First.

[Falubaz]

Why are they supposed to be "infamous"?

[Minato ku]

Many londoners didn't like the articulated buses.
It is quite surprising to see a big city buses networks like in Glasgow buying old London buses.

[Falubaz]

That's so weird. I've never heard about ppl not liking aritculated buses. They usually love them, because there is much more space there.

[MattN]

Originally Posted by Falubaz

Why are they supposed to be "infamous"?

When Boris Johnson first became mayor, he had made an election pledge to get rid of all bendy buses in London and they were all gone by the end of 2011. It was mostly based on a strange debate of largely unsubstantiated assertions that they were more 'dangerous' on the streets than other buses. I remember there were some problems with the early ones that led to several fires before they were fixed, but for some reason a lot of people just seemed to hate them.

[Kolothos]

I guess it's because, unlike in most of Europe, we are more used to having double deckers on our streets, which are much shorter in comparison, so when all these European style articulated buses starting appearing on our roads, we started moaning, naturally (this is Britain after all).

They were hated very much by other road users.

[Kolothos]

Kinning Park - Subway


Croftfoot - Cathcart Circle (Newton branch)


This was Dalmarnock before it shut. It will be reopened for the Commonwealth Games in 2014.

[Kolothos]

Fastlink - A section of future BRT route on the Broomielaw. It's been here for quite a few years now, and has yet to be used.
image hosted on flickr


Hopefully trams will be running down this in the future.

[Kolothos]

A Subway train running in open air at the Govan depot.
image hosted on flickr


One extension proposal from a decade or so ago involved extending the line from Govan to the Airport, most likely running 'overground'. It's something I'd love to see.

[Kolothos]

Botanic Gardens (Abandonded) - Central Railway

http://www.edgecity.co.uk/uploads/20...C_0010_DxO.jpg

Glasgow has a very rich railway heritage. Much like London, our Victorian forefathers built several underground railway lines under Glasgow. In London, these were absorbed into a larger 'Underground' railway system. In Glasgow, the deep level Subway remained seperate from the subsurface heavy rail lines, and as such, they fell victim to the Beeching Axe.

It is often said that Glasgow has the third oldest Underground railway system in the world, but seeing as the Glasgow Central and District railways were already in operation before the Budapest Metro, and formed a very similar service to that of London's Metropolitan Railway, it could be said that Glasgow has the second oldest in the world.

Here's a lovely 3D representation of what Botanic Gardens would have looked like in use.

[get13]

That CGI image is awesome. I've never seen it before. I wish they'd find a way to reopen these stations and incorporate them into a larger system branded along with the existing subway.

[dwdwone]

Originally Posted by Kolothos

A Subway train running in open air at the Govan depot.
image hosted on flickr


One extension proposal from a decade or so ago involved extending the line from Govan to the Airport, most likely running 'overground'. It's something I'd love to see.

I thought the cars never left the underground, that they were lifted up by some sort of crane mechaism for maintenance ?

[MK Tom]

Originally Posted by dwdwone

I thought the cars never left the underground, that they were lifted up by some sort of crane mechaism for maintenance ?

That was the case before the rebuild in the late 1970s. The only line to work like that now is London's Waterloo and City line.

Since the Subway reopened there's been a maintenance facility at Govan which is wholly above ground, including a short test track on a former railway alignment. But all of the passenger line is underground. The depot does give the weird sight of normal railway built at 4' 0'' gauge.

[Kolothos]

Yep, there's an exit route from the circle between Ibrox and Govan. There's quite a bit of track on old railway alignment.

Infact, that railway alignment leads onto the heavy rail lines into Paisley, and so by using a few bits of old alignment, a Subway extension into Renfrew (and to the airport) is certainly feasible, and I'm surprised it's not been brought up by the powers that be in the past few years.

[dwdwone]

Originally Posted by Kolothos

Yep, there's an exit route from the circle
Infact, that railway alignment leads onto the heavy rail lines into Paisley, and so by using a few bits of old alignment, a Subway extension into Renfrew (and to the airport) is certainly feasible, and I'm surprised it's not been brought up by the powers that be in the past few years.

A couple of years ago they were talking about massive subway expansion. A few months later they decided they couldn't afford it, especially the tunneling. Which means they probably never considered using that track for an airport extension.