Greenock Central railway station

Greenock Central
Scottish Gaelic: Grianaig Mheadhain
Looking east along the concourse which has lost its glazed roof, as passengers leave an eastbound train. Note the steel ramp down to Platform 2.
Location
Place	Greenock
Local authority	Inverclyde
Coordinates
Grid reference	NS282758
Operations
Station code	GKC
Managed by	Abellio ScotRail
Number of platforms	2
Live arrivals/departures, station information and onward connections from National Rail Enquiries
Annual rail passenger usage*
2002/03	0.270 million
2004/05	0.302 million
2005/06	0.335 million
2006/07	0.342 million
2007/08	0.335 million
2008/09	0.385 million
2009/10	0.386 million
2010/11	0.399 million
2011/12	0.391 million
2012/13	0.398 million
2013/14	0.379 million
History
31 March 1841	Opened
National Rail – UK railway stations
* Annual estimated passenger usage based on sales of tickets in stated financial year(s) which end or originate at Greenock Central from Office of Rail and Road statistics. Methodology may vary year on year.
UK Railways portal

File:Greenock Watt College residences.jpg

The Clyde steamer Waverley at Custom House Quay

File:Greenock Central 190906a.jpg

To the left of the new booking office the tunnel west goes under Terrace Road, which is reached by a steel staircase. Station Avenue goes through the stone archway down to Cathcart Street.

Greenock Central station is one of eight railway stations serving the town of Greenock in western Scotland, and is the nearest to the town centre. This station, which is staffed, is on the Inverclyde Line, 37 km (23 mi) west of Glasgow Central towards Gourock. It has three platforms, two of which are in use, with one disused bay platform. This disused platform is still connected to the main line.

It was originally the terminus before the railway was extended to Gourock and at that time was known as Greenock Cathcart station, as the access road to the station leads off the town's Cathcart Street.

History

The station was opened by the Glasgow, Paisley and Greenock Railway on 31 March 1841 as the terminus of its line from Bridge Street railway station, which had a shared section between Glasgow, and Paisley Gilmour Street being run by the Glasgow and Paisley Joint Railway. Greenock was already a major seaport and a branch near the station provided a goods service, but it was the passenger service which proved a major success. Clyde steamers took a couple of hours to get from Glasgow down the River Clyde as far as Greenock, and now for the first time a railway took only an hour to get to the coast. The terminus with its short driveway sloping down to Cathcart Street was around 300 yards (280 m) from Custom House Quay, Greenock, where steamers took wealthy commuters in summer to their villas around the shores of the Firth of Clyde as well as huge numbers of holidaymakers visiting resorts down the firth at "trades holidays", particularly the annual Glasgow Fair.

When the railway merged with the Caledonian Railway on 9 July 1847, Greenock Cathcart was the main access to the coast. However, in 1869 their dominance of this traffic ended when the Glasgow and South Western Railway opened its station on the waterfront at Princes Pier, Greenock. Greenock's growth had led to increasing overcrowding of tenement houses, and passengers were glad to avoid the walk through these streets. Attempts by the Caledonian to extend their railway to Gourock had met with difficulties in getting through a built up area, but now, spurred by competition, they gained Parliamentary approval in 1884. The route took the railway in a tunnel from the station under the town's Well Park (which provides a level area atop a high rocky crag), then in further cuttings and tunnels westwards through the hillside clear of the expensive properties on the coast. After three years in construction the Gourock Extension Railway opened on 1 June 1889.

In the 1923 grouping, the line became part of the LMS, then after coming under British Railways. The line was electrified in 1967.

The station buildings

The tracks from Glasgow enter at the east end of the wide concourse which is flanked to the north and south by high stone walls, each capped at the east end by a castellated turret. A glazed roof between these walls sheltered the concourse until recently, but it has been removed and small shelters introduced. The northernmost line stops as a bay platform and is not in use, and platform 1 serving eastbound trains opens directly to the top of Station Avenue which slopes down to Cathcart Street through stone archways marking the station entrance. The two tracks in use continue westwards through a tunnel which is capped by the parapet wall to Terrace Road, which leaves Cathcart Street further to the west and rises steeply towards the station before turning south over the tunnel entrance and continuing to rise to the level of the Well Park. Doorways in the parapet wall lead to staircases down to each platform, and to a steel ramp down to Platform 2 serving westbound trains. Originally, there was only one doorway, which lead to a sloping passage which in turn connected with the (now removd) station's internal steel lattice footbridge.

Originally, before electrification, this bridge had both stairs and a ramp for porters' trolleys on the up (westbound) platform, and from the landing above the eastbound platform there was the passageway to the door onto Terrace Road, a staircase down to the platform, and an archway through to an external, stone-flagged ramp down to another archway back into the building and platform area. Thus luggage (which in the 19th century would have consisted of large steamer trunks, and been hauled by a porter on a large four wheeled trolley) could be moved from one platform to the other as required.

At electrification in 1967, the steel lattice footbridge span above the tracks was raised several feet, and steps inserted at each end, to provide extra clearance for the 25kV overhead wires, at the same time the up platform ramp to the bridge was removed as the steps in the span meant that trolleys could no longer use the bridge, however the luggage habits of passengers had changed significantly so this was not seen as a problem, the idea of wheelchair/disabled accessibility being still several decades in the future at the time.

The internal footbridge was entirely removed in the late 1990s, and an all-new stairway leading to a new doorway onto Terrace Road was built to replace it, leaving the current situation where passengers needing to cross from one platform to the other must do so via Terrace Road.

The original booking office was demolished around the early 1990s, being replaced for a time by a portable building and now that the glazed roof has been removed a small booking office with a hipped roof has been added, with the north side of the concourse being made into a car park.

Preceding station	National Rail			Following station
Greenock West		Abellio ScotRail Inverclyde Line		Cartsdyke
	Historical railways
Greenock West		Caledonian Railway Glasgow, Paisley and Greenock Railway		Cartsdyke

Sources

• RAILSCOT on Glasgow, Paisley and Greenock Railway

External links

• Train times and station information for Greenock Central railway station from National Rail