Improving Platform 7 - Inverness

[Gathursty]

I've looked on Google satellite view at Inverness and have had a thought.

Would it be a good idea to build long platforms on the through route from the south of the country to the Far North Line enabling longer trains northbound?

Platform 7 and the other FNL dedicated lines could be removed and allow the station to be repurposed such as a longer concourse, extra shops, increasing car park space.

I'm aware there is a depot facility within the triangle which would create a gap between the existing southbound platforms and where the new platforms would be but if the P6/7 track is removed, a flat walking route could be put in.

If that is too problematic, what would you do with the layout at Inverness to make it better?

 

[Clansman]

In an ideal world Inverness station would be demolished along with the depot (which I think is listed?) and rebuilt as a through station of around the same platforms, and rellocate the depot towards the old industrial estates at the end of the current platform 7. The space left over where the current station is would then be used for multistorey carparking and for new retail developments - not too disimilar to what Aberdeen did with Union Square when they pumped millions into their old station frontage.

For the tourist base that it is, Inverness really is lacking the proper facilities and provisions both as a station and as a city. Millions of pounds needs pumped into the city centre and its transport hubs to propell it out of its perpetual dreich.

 

[Indigo Soup]

In an ideal world Inverness station would be demolished along with the depot (which I think is listed?) and rebuilt as a through station of around the same platforms

Oddly enough, something very much like that was proposed in the 1960s when the Highlands and Islands Development Board was making all sorts of wild plans for the future, like a motorway to Invergordon and land reclamation of Nigg Bay.

 

[Meerkat]

Isn’t there space for the depot on the north side if you tidy up the sidings layout? Maybe put the multi-storey on top of it as that side is nearest to the A9.
Then the current station site can be tourist aimed hotel/retail and offices on a prime site that should generate rail journeys (hotel right on station with good facilities for loading guests onto coach tours).
The station could be smaller if trains ran through. From the north they could continue to a south Parkway by the retail park, college, and hospital and then possibly Culloden (gradient issues?). From South and East it would probably only be local trains to Dingwall?