Fire at Glasgow Central (08/03/26)

[Dave W]

https://stores.sainsburys.co.uk/6556/glasgow-gordon-street-local

Our store is closed until 30th of June 2026

Could be a sign the main entrance could be shut until June? I wonder when they can start construction of a new building on this site too I guess it will be atleast a year it could sit empty?

Given that this is the end of a financial (and calendar) quarter, perhaps it's an arbitrary estimation?

 

[The exile]

More a question of range, I would guess. More fuel means less bombs. For similar reasons, Berlin (at a similar distance from East Anglia to that between the Noreqgian coast and Glasgow) suffered reletively little bomb damage until later in the war, when longer range bombers like the Lancaster had been developed.

Also why Dresden thought it was safe until the fateful night…

 

[Acathater]

If the store is closed because getting deliveries is impractical due to the road being closed, how are they doing a shop refit?

Big difference between H&S trained building workers accessing the site and the general public. If there's access for demolition of that block, there will be room for builders

 

[AlterEgo]

Photo from here: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cvgjqzl7wrzo

Anyone know what the rectangular structure at an angle within the ruins was? Lift shafts?

Looks like Berlin in 1945. Just need a few Red Army soldiers behind some sandbags in the foreground.

 

[Bletchleyite]

With regard to the Sainsbury's, perhaps they have moved the staff to a new store opening and thus require some level of certainty with regard to dates so they can run the recruitment process for replacements before moving them back.

 

[Rail Ranger]

BBC News story about the imminent demolition of the damaged building.
"Demolition of fire-ravaged building to begin later" BBC News - Demolition of fire-ravaged building at Glasgow Central to begin - BBC News

Glasgow Central Station closed until next week during demolition work

Glasgow City Council teams have started to break down the "highly dangerous" remains of the Union Corner building next to the station.

www.bbc.co.uk

Glasgow City Council teams have started to dismantle the "highly dangerous" remains of the B-listed Union Corner building next door to the station.
The historic building, at the junction of Union Street and Gordon Street, was destroyed in an overnight inferno on Sunday after a fire took hold in a vape shop.
Network Rail said Central Station's high‑level platforms would remain closed. Low-level platforms reopened to passengers earlier this week.

Ross Moran, route director at Network Rail Scotland, said: "We understand how disruptive this extended closure is for passengers and the wider city centre.
"The damage to the building beside the station is clearly significant and any phased reopening will depend on demolition work progressing to a stage that allows our engineers to safely return."

Shows a photograph of "floating chimneys" attached to the building next door. Encouraging that demolition is starting so soon?

 

[GRALISTAIR]

Fast Euston-Glasgows (1Sxx) still terminate at Motherwell.

Yes and weird to see. This sign at Preston for example.

 

[PaxVobiscum]

The buckets catching leaks and general excess of water on the platforms has been an ongoing problem in the low level for months. Looked to be a gradual worsening of the problem as the 'Avenues' project work at street level has progressed but whether it's related is unclear to me. Doubt it's related to the firefighting activity though given it's been a longstanding thing.

Indeed – photo from early February and it hadn’t even been raining.

 

[Scotrail344Lad]

Indeed – photo from early February and it hadn’t even been raining.

View attachment 200222

Good old buckets

 

[matchmaker]

I don't recall anything about Glasgow City Centre suffering particularly from bombing; Clydebank however was a different matter.....

And that is perhaps why Glasgow received the nickname of "Tinderbox City". As the centre of the city didn't receive a pasting from Herr Goerings planes,most of the old Victorian warehouses survived, to be turned into bonded warehouse, factory and cash and carry fire death traps in the 1950s and 1960s.

 

[deerokus]

Another photo from skyscraper city. Demolition work has started, they're taking down the 'floating' chimney stack first and it looks like it will take a while. Would imagine it will be some time before any kind of normal service at Central.

 

[Bikeman78]

For all the platforms to be available the station requires the Gordon St entrance to be open in order to meet evacuation time standards in the event of an emergency. Just having Argyle St and Hope St available wouldn't meet that requirement.

I have seen the whole concourse packed at Waterloo after someone got hit by a train. It would be interesting to see how evacuating all those people would compare with evacuating Glasgow with only two exits.

Edit: looking at the video posted a few pages up, the corner by Whsmith and the Gordon Street entrance is cordoned off. Was that done during the early part of the fire whilst the station was still open? Seems odd to do it afterwards when the station is shut anyway.

 

[Strathclyder]

Massive Forsyths crane (painfully ironic company name there; concidence obviously, but still...) now in place on Union St as part of demolition works. Snapped this during a flying visit to the city centre this afternoon (13th March). GCC wasting as little time as possible clearly.

 

[ian1944]

Massive Forsyths crane (painfully ironic company name there; concidence obviously, but still...) now in place on Union St as part of demolition works. Snapped this during a flying visit to the city centre this afternoon (13th March). GCC wasting as little time as possible clearly.

View attachment 200250

Better than doing it the Fred Dibnah way all at once from the bottom (though he did some of his chimneys from the top, one brick at a time with a hammer after attaching his ladders all the way up - I'm guessing that that wouldn't be allowed now).

 

[InOban]

Nowadays they don't demolish buildings, they deconstruct them.

Some of the stone may be reusable.

 

[edwin_m]

The station isn't closed to everyone though, otherwise they wouldn't be filming there. That could be a demarkation between authorised personnel only and fire service / building control only.

It's really not that unusual for areas to have barriers in buildings / sites not open to the public.

It was mentioned somewhere above that there was a concern about the station being open because closure of an exit route would slow down an evacuation of large numbers of people if that became necessary. This would not prevent small numbers of people being present.

Barriering off of the nearest corner of the concourse to the burnt-out building is presumably because someone has assessed that if it collapsed in the worst direction, that part of the concourse would be at risk from the falling masonry. In that case I'd expect that nobody would be allowed into that area until at least the upper parts of the building have been removed.

 

[InOban]

I'm not an engineer or architect but I'm wondering whether even though the station was structurally separate, it might still be be necessary to prop up the East wall of the station?

 

[driver9000]

You say that but i am currently on a train from Liverpool to Carlisle. The display at the Platform at Preston says it is going to Carlisle. However control must have told the guard it is going to Edinburgh as there's been an announcement on the train, and a new crew have jumped on at Preston.

That was unconnected with the fire and was a set swap to ensure the 397 that was on the Liverpool diagram ends up at Longsight for exam although the screens at Preston didn't change initially for some reason. After the swap plus booked crew changes both Carlisle and Edinburgh services left more or less on time.

 

[Pinus contorta]

That was unconnected with the fire and was a set swap to ensure the 397 that was on the Liverpool diagram ends up at Longsight for exam although the screens at Preston didn't change initially for some reason. After the swap plus booked crew changes both Carlisle and Edinburgh services left more or less on time.

I see. Thanks for that

 

[MadCommuter]

The busyness of that particular train is surely nothing to do with having to accommodate passengers from a terminated Avanti service?!!

Perhaps not but it is certainly taking passengers from other services, such as curtailed Lanark trains. 3 cars at that time of the morning is not suitable and that is my point

 

[QueensCurve]

If a fence were to be placed just outside the row of bollards, would the collpse radius of the Union Corner structure be within that?

 

[cats_five]

If a fence were to be placed just outside the row of bollards, would the collpse radius of the Union Corner structure be within that?

I think so. But a storey or so.

 

[ainsworth74]

Better than doing it the Fred Dibnah way all at once from the bottom (though he did some of his chimneys from the top, one brick at a time with a hammer after attaching his ladders all the way up - I'm guessing that that wouldn't be allowed now).

Hopefully everyone is aware of Fred Dibnah and what's being referred to here but just in case I would highly recommend this video on YouTube from the BBC Archive. I promise it's 50 minutes of TV that will fly by and demonstrates both methods of demolition referred to above:

 

[edwin_m]

If a fence were to be placed just outside the row of bollards, would the collpse radius of the Union Corner structure be within that?

IT would take a structural engineer to assess that, and they would use very conservative assumptions. For example, the whole facade could come down together, hinging at the bottom, in which case the furthest piece of the rubble would hit the ground at the height of the surviving structure away from its base. Some of it might then bounce further away than that.

This one is likely to be one brick/stone at a time from the top down, because when the structure is unstable you don't want anyone in the zone where rubble might fall into if it did collapse.

 

[Elecman]

Hopefully everyone is aware of Fred Dibnah and what's being referred to here but just in case I would highly recommend this video on YouTube from the BBC Archive. I promise it's 50 minutes of TV that will fly by and demonstrates both methods of demolition referred to above:

If you fall off it’s half a day out with the Undertaker

 

[dosxuk]

If a fence were to be placed just outside the row of bollards, would the collpse radius of the Union Corner structure be within that?

Collapse - no chance - or rather, it depends on what collapsed, but it could easily eject material a significant distance further, so nobody would ever sign it off as safe.

Controlled demolition - possibly. But you can't do a controlled demolition on a structure that is in an unsafe condition. You've got to make all the loose wobbly bits that might collapse safe before you can start safely taking bits down.

So if you're looking for a quick easy way to get the main entrance open, it doesn't exist at present, and won't until the structure is made safe (which is probably going to involve gently poking it until it falls down by itself).

 

[Pinus contorta]

I was walking along a street in fact it was a pedestrian square outside a station in Germany about 30 years ago. And there was a 10 storey concrete building nearby which was clad in scaffolding and cladding being taken down bit by bit in a controlled fashion . A breeze block or large lump of concrete about the size of a football ( i cant recall exactly what ) landed about 1 metre in front of me and bounced up. I jumped side ways. If I had been 2 paces further along it would have struck me on the head and killed me. Thankfully risk management of these sort of things has moved on in the 21st century and since mr Dibnah . If it takes 3 months it takes 3 months at least it will.be safe afterwards.

 

[Acathater]

I was walking along a street in fact it was a pedestrian square outside a station in Germany about 30 years ago. And there was a 10 storey concrete building nearby which was clad in scaffolding and cladding being taken down bit by bit in a controlled fashion . A breeze block or large lump of concrete about the size of a football ( i cant recall exactly what ) landed about 1 metre in front of me and bounced up. I jumped side ways. If I had been 2 paces further along it would have struck me on the head and killed me. Thankfully risk management of these sort of things has moved on in the 21st century and since mr Dibnah . If it takes 3 months it takes 3 months at least it will.be safe afterwards.

The problem with something like that is how do you protect the team erecting the supporting scaffold? Slightest vibration and the whole lot could come down on their heads

 

[The exile]

The problem with something like that is how do you protect the team erecting the supporting scaffold? Slightest vibration and the whole lot could come down on their heads

A modern version of the Roman testudo (tortoise) would do it - but seems unnecessarily complicated. One assumes though, that if the “slightest vibration” was going to bring the house down it would have happened by now (although the fate of Dresden’s Frauenkirche is a salutary lesson of the delayed effects of fire).

 

[Buzby]

What confuses me is those 'hanging chimneys' - they appear to belong to Caledonian Chambers as they are affixed to the adjacent building and are/were not part of the Union Corner building (as the rear part of the CC building uses exactly the same red brick).

Most Glaswegians of a certain age remember the animated IrnBru neon signage that stood bolted to the gable for many years, before latterly being replaced (I believe around 2010, firstly with a large format LED moving advertising display, before this too gave way to a full moving-video capable display in portait orientation from 2015.

It was hard to discern the mounting of it from ground level, but looking at the outline on the street-frontage chimney, this appeared to be a CC asset (before the flames from the Union Building totally overwhelmed it). Indeed, if you look carefully at the first video showing the smoke belching out of the Vape Shop, you can see the display glowing through the smoke and you can witness it extinguishing itself as it gives up the ghost. Its mountings have gone and there appears to be no evidence of it in the latest images.