St Enoch Terminus Glasgow question.

[jadmor]

I saw a comment of Facebook recently that St Enoch might have been under consideration for replacing Queen Street. There was a hand drawn map showing a flying junction at Bellgrove. Given the layout at St Enoch, and the curves and gradients on the line from Cowlairs, this seems to be very unlikely, unless there was a concern over the condition of the tunnel to Queen Street. Has anyone else heard of this?

 

[Russel]

Interesting idea but not one I've eveyheard about.

Curious myself now as to weather anyone else knows more.

 

[Acathater]

How recently was this supposed to have been considered?

 

[Sir Felix Pole]

One of the issues with Queen St., particularly with loco-hauled services, was the short platforms and limited capacity, so I suppose St. Enoch might have been considered as an alternative in the 1966 rationalisation process.

There have been various proposed 'Crossrail' schemes over the years, of course, using the City Union line, but not involving St. Enoch.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 5 Feb 2026 ==

There was also a 1951 proposal in the 'Bruce Report' for a 'Glagow North' station - effectively a rebuilt and enlarged Buchanan St. which would also replace Queen Street. 'Glasqow South' would replace Central and St. Enoch.

 

[Albaman]

I have never heard of this idea.

At St Enoch's , only platforms 1 and 2 were connected to the line to High Street and the signal box would have had to be moved in order to provide access to more platforms.

In my somewhat limited experience, the only occasion when I saw the line to High Street used was by the ECS of the 0610 from Annan the ECS of which propelled from platform 2 on to the line from High Street then proceeded to Bellahouston carriage sidings.

 

[Bevan Price]

St. Enoch to Cowlairs Junction was a rather tortuous route, around 4 miles, compared with about 1.5 miles from Queen Street to Cowlairs Jn, so there would have been a significant time penalty if they had used St. Enoch

 

[Transilien]

I have thought about this idea before myself! Perhaps instead of the Falkirk route being retained, instead the Bathgate route could have been used instead for Glasgow-Edinburgh expresses. With this route being electrified. Also St Enoch could have functioned as a replacement for Bridgeton Central with electrification.

 

[stuving]

There was also a 1951 proposal in the 'Bruce Report' for a 'Glagow North' station - effectively a rebuilt and enlarged Buchanan St. which would also replace Queen Street. 'Glasqow South' would replace Central and St. Enoch.

The Bruce Report for Glasgow Corporation (First Planning Report to the Highways and Planning Committee of the Corporation of the City of Glasgow) was the 1945 one famous (or notorious) for proposing a lot of new roads. That was followed by the Scottish Office's alternative proposal published in 1949 (Clyde Valley Regional Plan 1946).

And then in 1951 the Glasgow & District Transport Committee set up by the British Transport Commission produced its report (Passenger Transport in Glasgow and District). This last is in the Railways Archive, and it summarises the Bruce Report and makes its own proposals (which include a new north station, but keeping Central and St. Enoch - and lots of electrification). It also covers the Fitzpayne report, by the head of Glasgow Corporation Transport, which followed the Bruce Report, and draws on the Clyde Valley Plan. Plenty of reports there for you to read, first- or second-hand!

As an aside, the first item on their list of proposals for the railways is:
"The fare structure requires consideration, especially in regard to the variety of tickets issued, the conditions appertaining to each and the inter-relationship of the various charges."

Plus ça change ...

 

[Uncle Buck]

I’ve never heard of this either and I’m not sure what benefits it would have brought.

Perhaps instead of the Falkirk route being retained, instead the Bathgate route could have been used instead for Glasgow-Edinburgh expresses. With this route being electrified.

The Falkirk line would have had to remain open anyway as the main line to the north from both Glasgow and Edinburgh. Is it not also the case that the Falkirk line, being built on the watershed, is a flatter route with gentler gradients? This is why the railway does not run along the obvious route which the motorway takes in modern times.

 

[Rescars]

Aside from railway operating matters, had St Enoch survived, perhaps BTH would have kept the St Enoch Hotel and closed / disposed of the North British instead.

 

[jadmor]

The Bruce Report for Glasgow Corporation (First Planning Report to the Highways and Planning Committee of the Corporation of the City of Glasgow) was the 1945 one famous (or notorious) for proposing a lot of new roads. That was followed by the Scottish Office's alternative proposal published in 1949 (Clyde Valley Regional Plan 1946).

And then in 1951 the Glasgow & District Transport Committee set up by the British Transport Commission produced its report (Passenger Transport in Glasgow and District). This last is in the Railways Archive, and it summarises the Bruce Report and makes its own proposals (which include a new north station, but keeping Central and St. Enoch - and lots of electrification). It also covers the Fitzpayne report, by the head of Glasgow Corporation Transport, which followed the Bruce Report, and draws on the Clyde Valley Plan. Plenty of reports there for you to read, first- or second-hand!

As an aside, the first item on their list of proposals for the railways is:
"The fare structure requires consideration, especially in regard to the variety of tickets issued, the conditions appertaining to each and the inter-relationship of the various charges."

Plus ça change ...

Thanks for posting this link. I can see that the idea was raised, but immediately dismissed as being impractical on cost grounds. i think I have a plan somewhere of the proposed north station proposal which I will post when located.

 

[stuving]

Thanks for posting this link. I can see that the idea was raised, but immediately dismissed as being impractical on cost grounds. i think I have a plan somewhere of the proposed north station proposal which I will post when located.

The BTC report has a few maps at the back: there is one of the new north station. This is the key part of it, showing the new station on the site of Buchanan Street stations, overlaid on the "old" (i.e. current) Queen Street.

 

[d9009alycidon]

Think this is something I posted on FB! A number of years ago I sketched up this very idea on my Website "Lowland Locomotives", it was not based on any official schemes, just something that I thought would be a possibility, but I did not include closure of Queen Street. It is still described on an archive page but the diagram has been lost, link here if anyone is interested http://web.archive.org/web/20031107185701/http://www.jhowie.f9.co.uk/crossrail.htm

There was another "official" scheme proposed and was described in Rail Magazine. It was a totally improbable idea which would have seem a two track tunnel bored from Cowlairs to near Shields Road. Queen Street surface station would have been closed and all traffic routed via the tunnel. An underground station would have been built under Queen Street Low Level. At that time electrification of lines out of Queen Street was still not even being considered, so how this could have been worked by DMUs is beyond comprehension. I think I still have the old article somewhere.

 

[Cheshire Scot]

There was another "official" scheme proposed and was described in Rail Magazine. It was a totally improbable idea which would have seem a two track tunnel bored from Cowlairs to near Shields Road. Queen Street surface station would have been closed and all traffic routed via the tunnel. An underground station would have been built under Queen Street Low Level. At that time electrification of lines out of Queen Street was still not even being considered, so how this could have been worked by DMUs is beyond comprehension. I think I still have the old article somewhere.

That would have been quite a gradient from Cowlairs to below not only Queen St High Level but also QS Low Level.

 

[d9009alycidon]

Old article from Rail Magazine, think it was around 1998, says the tunnel could have been open by 2005.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 12 Feb 2026 ==

I have never heard of this idea.

At St Enoch's , only platforms 1 and 2 were connected to the line to High Street and the signal box would have had to be moved in order to provide access to more platforms.

In my somewhat limited experience, the only occasion when I saw the line to High Street used was by the ECS of the 0610 from Annan the ECS of which propelled from platform 2 on to the line from High Street then proceeded to Bellahouston carriage sidings.

The last time that scheduled passenger trains used platforms 1 and 2 to access the link to High Street was the weekend before the Blue Trains came into service, the line through Queen Street Low Level was closed between High Street and Partick to allow the tunnels to clear of smoke. Temporary timetables were in use with trains from Helensburgh and the west terminating in Queen Street High Level and those from Airdrie terminating at St Enoch, I have a copy of the special traffic notice somewhere.

 

[OVS Flatbottom]

A version of the north-south deep tunnel scheme was in the 2019 report of the Glasgow Connectivity Commission (perhaps better known for recommending what became the Clyde Metro project): https://www.glasgow.gov.uk/media/15...Report/pdf/Connectivity_Commission_Report.pdf.

The most straightforward option is for the tunnel to run from a southern portal on the Ayrshire and Inverclyde lines in the vicinity of Shields Junction via a single underground station in the city centre located in between Central and Queen Street so that the escalators from each end of the station meet the surface inside or immediately adjacent to the two existing high level stations. From the city centre, the tunnel would then continue north paralleling the tunnel from Queen Street high level station, rejoining the existing network near Cowlairs Junction.

More ambitious options include building the tunnel for 12 car trains and providing tunnelled junctions either side of the city centre, giving access to more routes such as the Kilmarnock/East Kilbride lines and the dormant tunnel towards Springburn and Cumbernauld that served the old Buchanan Street station.

Unlike Clyde Metro, it doesn't seem to have been taken forward in subsequent studies.

 

[stuving]

There was another plan involving the demolition of some of the Glasgow termini, which was in the Clyde Valley Plan (the Scottish Office one of 1946, aka the Abercrombie report). I haven't found that report, but this part was briefly described in the BTC report - just enough to reject it: