How was track 11a at Glasgow Central used?

[USRailFan]

Track 11a was the short stub track between the tracks 10 and 11 that long distance trains used, and the Ayr/Inverclyde tracks. But how was this track actually used in regular traffic? I've seen photos from the 80s with locos parked there, and photos from the final years before the track was removed in the remodelling for the cancelled Glasgow Airport Rail Link, with 318s and 156s parked there. Did trains actually run to/from the track (it looks like it could fit two coupled three-car EMUs)? Or was it just used for short-term parking of trainsets/locos?

 

[Railsigns]

Platform 11A was occasionally used by passenger trains at times of service disruption. It was fully signalled to passenger standards, but not normally used because of its location far from the station concourse.

 

[Buzby]

It could, and it did. I’ve departed on many trains from 11a (much to my annoyance) as you as a passenger had to slog it up past the car park through the arch, and then out into the rain as 11a was totally exposed. Whilst I might have had a small thrill at realising I was standing over the River Clyde, the number of passengers who missed their train simply because they didn’t realise how far it was from the barriers Was legion. This was not a ‘sometimes’ option, it happened too often for that.

 

[hexagon789]

Seemed to be most commonly used by the Paisley Canals but also sometimes Inverclyde trains in the 2000s from my memories of using Central back then.

 

[Cheshire Scot]

I recall it also being used for Parcels / Mail / Newspaper traffic.

 

[Taunton]

In the 1970s it was used in the evening to hold the sorting carriage with 'late post' mailbox in the side, and a couple of other vans, for the West Coast Postal to London. I went there a couple of times to post something, as much for the novelty as anything. You could freely drive up the ramp from Hope Street and right down the platform. I presume it was drawn forward and backed onto the rest of the train just before departure.

 

[Buzby]

A further annoyance was that the building that contained the departure ’screens’ featured only 13 windows - one for each standard platform. There was no 11A window to show the stations/destinations - this was achieved by adding a printed cloth banner to the list of stations called at, and this was then stuck in any unoccupied window - so you had to read them all. It was so unsatisfactory on so many levels. This remained the process until the arrival of the relocated electronic versions above the platform ends (3-8).

 

[Strathclyder]

Seemed to be most commonly used by the Paisley Canals but also sometimes Inverclyde trains in the 2000s from my memories of using Central back then.

There are a few pics of 318s and 334s sat at that platform floating about online, which would seem to confirm this.

318260 on the old platform 11a at glasgow central

Explore Western SMT's 33400 photos on Flickr!

www.flickr.com

334037 at Platform 11a with a Weymss Bay service | 18th October 2008

 

[Cheshire Scot]

I recall it also being used for Parcels / Mail / Newspaper traffic.

The winter 1974 station workings book has the following departures from Platform 11a:
00.15 4M10 Parcels to Man Vic
04.30 4A03 Parcels to Ayr (front train)
04.45 1B01 News to Kilmarnock
19.45 6T94 to Glasgow PS
22.40 no rep no. to Glasgow PS
arrivals
02.38 6T97 02.30 from Glasgow Parcels (for Kilmarnock and Ayr (above))
06.35 6T95 06.30 from Glasgow Parcels
21.50 6K80 21.45 from Glasgow Parcels - 2 x BG one for 22.40 to Glasgow PS the other part of 00.15 to Man Vic
24.00 6M10 23.55 from Glasgow Parcels and forms 00.15 to man Vic with BG off 6K80

Back then propelling moves between Glasgow Parcels and Central were routine hence none of the arrivals would see a loco blocked in, another example being 2 x GUV for 22.50 to Nottingham propelled into P3 by the train loco as 6K80 at 22.28.