Hindsight Glasgow

[delt1c]

There were plans to replace Queen St and Buchanan St with a new Station called Glasgow North , also replace Central and St Enoch Station with a New Station Glasgow south. Neither were followed through. However imagine that we had these today how many problems would
Have been readily resolved without huge financial costs.

 

[Bevan Price]

There were plans to replace Queen St and Buchanan St with a new Station called Glasgow North , also replace Central and St Enoch Station with a New Station Glasgow south. Neither were followed through. However imagine that we had these today how many problems would
Have been readily resolved without huge financial costs.

It might have been even more useful if they could have created a single "United Glasgow" station, with through platforms to link lines in all directions (North, East, South & West.)

 

[edwin_m]

Buchanan House (site of the former station and the proposed merged one if I recall correctly) has always seemed to be outside the centre, though perhaps the centre would have grown towards it, had it become the main station for the north side. However it's also quite a climb to get there, and the walk from the south side station would have been a lot more inconvenient than it is today between Central and Queen Street. Although Queen Street is cramped and approached by a steep incline, I think these inconveniences were a price worth paying to get a station right in the middle of the city. It pretty much copes with the north side traffic.

I've seen a plan of the north side one somewhere but I'm not familiar with the south side proposal - any good links? South side is more pushed for capacity due to the number of routes that funnel into Central, but I think a north-south tunnel would have been a better bet if Central wasn't thought to be big enough. Obviously the idea of underground (main) lines in Glasgow was well established early on so I don't think another one would have been unthinkable, whenever the proposal was made.

 

[Dr Hoo]

There were plans to replace Queen St and Buchanan St with a new Station called Glasgow North , also replace Central and St Enoch Station with a New Station Glasgow south. Neither were followed through. However imagine that we had these today how many problems would
Have been readily resolved without huge financial costs.

Am I misunderstanding the question?

It is not obvious to me that the two conceptual stations would have resolved any problems. Surely very few people would have really benefited by being able to interchange between 'Queen Street' services and 'Buchanan Street' services at Glasgow North on 'in-and-out' trips like Cumbernauld to Croy. These were subsequently achieved simply by diverting surviving Buchanan Street services into Queen Street anyway.

Presuming that the new stations were on totally new sites there would have been an inevitable loss of the connectivity between High Level and Low Level services at both Queen Street and Central. So Glasgow would have still had four 'city centre' stations.

I am also unclear how the proposals might have been realised "without huge financial cost".

Both of the mega-stations would presumably have had to be more on the fringes of the city centre (unless most of it was going to be demolished), so general convenience would have been worsened; and for passengers still having to interchange between the two the distance would have been even greater.

It sounds like some fascist architect's dystopian vision.

 

[delt1c]

Always wondered ( although if Initially expensive) a complete rebuild and enlargement of St Enochs would have been the solution as had access to both North and South. The negative thing was under the big four and privatisation. However under nationalisation had funds been available could have replaced 4 stations with 1

 

[Fleetwood Boy]

Am I misunderstanding the question?

It is not obvious to me that the two conceptual stations would have resolved any problems. Surely very few people would have really benefited by being able to interchange between 'Queen Street' services and 'Buchanan Street' services at Glasgow North on 'in-and-out' trips like Cumbernauld to Croy. These were subsequently achieved simply by diverting surviving Buchanan Street services into Queen Street anyway.

Presuming that the new stations were on totally new sites there would have been an inevitable loss of the connectivity between High Level and Low Level services at both Queen Street and Central. So Glasgow would have still had four 'city centre' stations.

I am also unclear how the proposals might have been realised "without huge financial cost".

Both of the mega-stations would presumably have had to be more on the fringes of the city centre (unless most of it was going to be demolished), so general convenience would have been worsened; and for passengers still having to interchange between the two the distance would have been even greater.

It sounds like some fascist architect's dystopian vision.

My only recollection of this was that the two stations were on a new north/south underground link. In that context it makes sense and they could probably have connected with the Low Level lines. But of course massively expensive.

I always think that the “long walk” between Central and Queen Street is over exaggerated - you walk far further at most airports.

 

[oldman]

It sounds like some fascist architect's dystopian vision.

If we are talking about the Robert Bruce plan at the end of WW2, it was indeed a dystopian vision. Bruce has been referred to as the Pol Pot of town planning. The BBC did a programme about it - on this page, South station is at the bottom of the large image.

On the map below, the stations are the two blue buildings at top and bottom. Since the city centre would have been demolished, it's hard to know exactly where they were going to be - handy for the motorways though.

 

[edwin_m]

If we are talking about the Robert Bruce plan at the end of WW2, it was indeed a dystopian vision. Bruce has been referred to as the Pol Pot of town planning. The BBC did a programme about it - on this page, South station is at the bottom of the large image.

On the map below, the stations are the two blue buildings at top and bottom. Since the city centre would have been demolished, it's hard to know exactly where they were going to be - handy for the motorways though.

View attachment 80803

Seems like a more radical version of what happened to Plymouth, although the Luftwaffe didn't flatten it to the same extent so there was less need to re-build. In fact Glasgow has always had the sort of logical grid layout that this type of city planner tends to yearn for.

And I think that sort of triumphal avenue up the middle is actually the footprint of Central! Doesn't look very practical in railway terms either, unless the platforms continued underground beyond the above-ground buildings.

 

[hexagon789]

If we are talking about the Robert Bruce plan at the end of WW2, it was indeed a dystopian vision. Bruce has been referred to as the Pol Pot of town planning. The BBC did a programme about it - on this page, South station is at the bottom of the large image.

On the map below, the stations are the two blue buildings at top and bottom. Since the city centre would have been demolished, it's hard to know exactly where they were going to be - handy for the motorways though.

View attachment 80803

It is a bit. Trying to figure out how that lines up with the city footprint, the City Chambers seem to have been moved to alongside the Clyde for a start.

 

[PaulLothian]

The Urban Glasgow website has details of the Northside proposals - https://urbanglasgow.co.uk/glasgow-north-station-t1055.html. With platform entrances at the southern end of the site, not too much of an extension of the walk to trains heading south.

Can't find anything equivalent for the Southside terminus, which I think would have been roughly on the Central Station site.

 

[WesternLancer]

And presumably the stations would have been realised in architectural terms along the Birmingham New Street model of design?

 

[edwin_m]

The Urban Glasgow website has details of the Northside proposals - https://urbanglasgow.co.uk/glasgow-north-station-t1055.html. With platform entrances at the southern end of the site, not too much of an extension of the walk to trains heading south.

Those maps are a little misleading in that their edges don't coincide. The entrance to the North Station looks to be about where Buchanan House is now, and I think anyone who has walked from either station to that building will attest that it feels quite "out of town" and it's quite a climb up from Queen Street. It looks like some of the Cowlairs Tunnel would be converted to a passenger subway for access to Queen Street Low Level (though I can't be sure as the writing isn't legible). This sounds an interesting idea in engineering terms but had the potential to become something truly horrible from the passenger point of view!