Queen Street on track for multi-million pound revamp in flagship line upgrade

Published on Saturday 20 June 2009 20:00

GLASGOW's Queen Street Station is to undergo a multi-million pound expansion, Scotland on Sunday has learned.

The landmark – which dates back to 1842 – will get new and longer platforms and, sources suggest, an airport-style passenger terminal.

The upgrade will be made as part of the Scottish Government's proposed 1 billion revamp of the flagship Edinburgh to Glasgow route.

Transport planners had long feared they would not be able to boost capacity between Scotland's two biggest cities because Queen Street, which is accessed through a long and narrow tunnel, could not handle longer and more frequent trains.

However, it is now understood they have come up with a plan to drive existing track right into what is currently the station's passenger concourse and add an extra-long curling platform in an area now used as a taxi rank.

Sources yesterday said the ambitious plans would leave little room for passengers in the current concourse, forcing station owners Network Rail and the Scottish Government to build a new two-level airport-style terminal next to the existing glass-ceilinged Victorian structure.

Network Rail, however, would yesterday only confirm it was looking at platform expansion. A spokesman said: "As part of the Edinburgh and Glasgow improvement programme we are examining how capacity at Glasgow Queen Street could be enhanced.

"The options under consideration include lengthening some existing platforms and creating an additional platform by utilising the current car parking space. This project is at an early stage and many elements, including funding, have yet to be finalised."

Scotland on Sunday, however, understands that the Scottish Government will almost certainly look to Network Rail to raise the funds needed for Queen Street's upgrade, probably, insiders said, by asking the state-owned company to borrow against its considerable track and other infrastructure assets.

A spokesman for First Minister Alex Salmond said: "Network Rail's borrowing powers are being used to improve the railways across Scotland.

"It is ironic that an agency of government has borrowing powers when the Scottish Government does not."

Sources said it was too soon to work out how much the station's expansion would cost.

Transport Scotland, the Scottish Government agency in charge of the nation's railways, said expansion plans at the Glasgow station were designed to allow the agency to meet its ambition of increasing the number of trains between Glasgow and Edinburgh from four an hour now to six an hour by 2016.

A spokeswoman for the agency said "Analysis is under way to assess the infrastructure improvements required at Queen Street to provide sufficient capacity for the requirements of the proposed 2016 timetable.

"The options being considered are designed to increase the operational flexibility of the station layout and consider combinations of realigned, extended and perhaps additional platforms."

The spokeswoman hinted that the station's passenger areas may be improved as well.

The Scottish Government has also been exploring potential sites for a third railway station for Glasgow. But proposals to reopen the old St Enoch station – at a site close to the shopping centre of the same name – now look unlikely to go ahead, sources said.

There are also doubts over an alternative third station site close to the existing Central Station. The so-called Central East Station would have been in Jamaica Street.

"Expanding Queen Street will buy us a decade," one source said. Ultimately, however, Glasgow may need new infrastructure if it is to cope with huge rising demand for train travel, transport insiders believe. The number of passengers using Queen Street alone has more than doubled in the past five years to nearly five million people annually.