New Glasgow Queen Street images

[herschell]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-glasgow-west-29446608

The public is being asked to comment on updated designs for the £104m revamp of Glasgow's Queen Street Station.

Network Rail has unveiled a new "flythrough video" as part of its second phase of public consultation.

Queen Street handles 20 million passengers a year. Network Rail said the revamp was needed to meet predicted growth to 28 million passengers by 2030 and to accommodate longer trains.

Construction work is due to begin in 2015 and finish in 2019.

There will be a number of major new developments at the station and surrounding areas, including an extension of the east side of the building into the Buchanan Galleries shopping centre.

in case anyone is interested the BBC have an article with new images of what the Queen Street upgrade could look like

 

[PaxVobiscum]

And the link to the consultation EGIP page with the fly through video:
http://www.egip.info/projects/queen-street-station-redevelopment-consultation-part-2

 

[snowball]

And the NR press release is here:

http://www.networkrailmediacentre.c...Queen-Street-consultation-continues-2178.aspx

 

[Grumpy]

What a hideous carbuncle. Glasgow has some of the finest looking buildings in the UK, and George Square itself is a delight. This frontage would be totally out of keeping with its surroundings. It might be ok for the likes of Milton Keynes or some dump like Leeds or Manchester.

Lets hope it's met with howls of outrage.

 

[HowardGWR]

What a hideous carbuncle. Glasgow has some of the finest looking buildings in the UK, and George Square itself is a delight. This frontage would be totally out of keeping with its surroundings. It might be ok for the likes of Milton Keynes or some dump like Leeds or Manchester.

Lets hope it's met with howls of outrage.

I disagree. It is not on St Georges Square proper and can thus be a fine building in its own right. It's a modern station and should look like one. More important is whether you can reach the concourse without climbing those steps in the video.

 

[deltic08]

Looks good from the inside, but as Grumpy says, hideous from the outside and surrounds.

 

[GatwickDepress]

I presume some junior staff photoshopped the Great Pyramid of Gaza onto the roof for a lark?

 

[Grumpy]

I disagree. It is not on St Georges Square proper and can thus be a fine building in its own right. It's a modern station and should look like one. More important is whether you can reach the concourse without climbing those steps in the video.

It certainly has some frontage onto George Square and can be seen from most of the Square. It's not a modern station it's 170 years old! Yes it's being substantially rebuilt to make it fit to serve future needs but that involves filling the innards with facilities to meet modern passenger demands-which I think we would agree should include some escalators rather than steps.

However on the outside it should blend in with its neighbours (which to be fair the current frontage doesn't). If you look at those cities where tourists say "wow, doesn't this place look great" the buildings tend to have some external similarity in terms of height, materials, colours, form etc without necessarily being identical. Think Amsterdam. Modern UK architects and Town Planners aren't very good at this.

 

[deltic08]

Had it not been for that monstrosity called Buchanan Galleries, the station could have been extended eastwards by removing 200 yards of tunnel.

There is a bricked-up arch adjacent to the current tunnel mouth. Where did this go?

 

[herschell]

I think it looks good and is just what Glasgow needs

 

[cf111]

I don't think the bits of Queen Street which face out on to Dundas Street and George Square at the moment are anything to write home about. This is an improvement in my opinion. The concourse is pretty miserable at the moment too.

 

[Strathclyder]

There is a bricked-up arch adjacent to the current tunnel mouth. Where did this go?

There never has been two tunnels out of Queen St, although that's what it looks like at first glance. It was used as a head-shunt/kickback for the old Queen St Goods Yard, situated directly beside the station.

An early station plan:

 

[Altnabreac]

I like the new plans, glass and steel modernism isn't to everyone's tastes but a pastiche of the City Chambers wouldn't work either on what is a slightly awkward corner site on George Square.

At the moment it is an ugly building and one with a lack of passenger concourse space and awkward circulation routes.

I disagree. It is not on St Georges Square proper and can thus be a fine building in its own right. It's a modern station and should look like one. More important is whether you can reach the concourse without climbing those steps in the video.

I think we would agree should include some escalators rather than steps.

It's not immediately clear from the fly through video but there is level access proposed from the corner of West George Street and Dundas Street (where Sainsburys is now) in the form of a ramp running across the front of the building up to join the concourse level alongside the stepped access from George Square.

I'm not convinced escalators are necessary for a relatively short flight of steps alongside a ramp and lift which are both included.

It's easiest to see what's intended by looking at page 2 of the previous consultation leaflet:
http://www.egip.info/media/3231/19214gqsconsultationlaunchleafletfinal.pdf

You just have to visualise moving the glass frontage forwards to enclose the ramp shown running across the front of the station in the diagram and pictures on page 2.

 

[swt_passenger]

I think it looks good and is just what Glasgow needs

Is there a possibility you could amend the thread title please? I think there's a 'Street' missing...

 

[herschell]

Could an admin please amend the Thread title to include "Street" Thanks

 

[yorkie]

Done

But for future reference, to edit a title click the edit (

)button then click Advanced Edit

And to contact admins/moderators use the report (

) button

 

[NotATrainspott]

To get the full picture about the refurb/rebuild you need the full context of the Buchanan Galleries expansion project. Here's a nighttime CGI render of what they're planning:

I believe both the Buchanan Galleries and the Queen Street refurbs are being designed as a combined project by BDP, but it seems some of the fine details have been missed in this render such as the precise design of the Queen Street frontage and the new multi-storey car park to the east, while other elements are still being designed like the glass connection across Cathedral Street down the side of the new MSCP.

From this render you can see that the open parts of the low and high level stations will basically be buried under the shopping centre. The structure on Buchanan Street with the roof terrace with trees is new and covers the air space on the western end of the low level platforms, which should mean they will now have the same fully-underground ambiance as the Central Low Level platforms. The new structure on the north side of Cathedral Street will cover the pointless air space over the high level throat, which might be interesting for a few years before all the lines to Aberdeen and Inverness are wired and there would be no diesel services remaining.

 

[work-traveller]

This is the opportunity to bring the magnificent Victoria barrel vaulted rook out towards Queen Street with a modern interpretation, i.e. lightweight steel skeleton with an ETFE panel covering like at Manchester Piccadilly or Manchester Victoria.

Unfortunately the current proposal is an 'instantly forgettable' modern structure that relates to neither the Victorian interior nor the Georgian streetscape surrounding the entrance. This proposal will keep the two divorced in an unfortunate way. This is quite unlike the far better proposals that have been implemented at London Kings Cross and Liverpool Lime Street.

 

[Grumpy]

This is the opportunity to bring the magnificent Victoria barrel vaulted rook out towards Queen Street with a modern interpretation, i.e. lightweight steel skeleton with an ETFE panel covering like at Manchester Piccadilly or Manchester Victoria.

Unfortunately the current proposal is an 'instantly forgettable' modern structure that relates to neither the Victorian interior nor the Georgian streetscape surrounding the entrance. This proposal will keep the two divorced in an unfortunate way. This is quite unlike the far better proposals that have been implemented at London Kings Cross and Liverpool Lime Street.

Well said

 

[Bodiddly]

Considering Abellio will be running the franchise in 2019, I don't think they will be too happy to see the information boards still have First Scotrail on them!

 

[clc]

Did Network Rail ever explain why they dropped the original plan for a footbridge running east / west above the platforms? It seemed like a good way to reduce congestion at the main gate lines.

 

[deltic08]

Having only just looked at this thread in any detail, it is a mistake to build on the old goods yard. There is room here for additional platforms that are needed now and will be even more in the future.

Even if additional platforms are not built, space is needed here for future growth and should not be built over. Do people in authority never learn through past mistakes? Have they lost all common sense?

The nettle should have been grasped after WW2 when there were plans to build a large station just to the southeast of Buchanan St Station for all of north of Glasgow services and close both stations. It would have covered the site of the present bus station fronting onto Parliament Street.

Returning to Queen Street quite late after the Commonwealth Games each evening last year, there were huge snaking queues of people, with no protection from the weather, waiting outside in this area for trains as the concourse was too small to accommodate so many waiting passengers. Even extending a few yards towards St Georges Square will not give sufficient space for crowds from special events like this.

 

[Cherry_Picker]

How big is Queen Street exactly? I've only been there once and it was for about ten minutes in the off peak some fifteen years ago as I got off a train from Edinburgh and was on my merry way. Back then passenger numbers weren't reported at all (or if they were they were laughably inaccurate and difficult to access as a member of the public) so I never really considered capacity problems the station might have.

Looking at passenger numbers now it seems that more than 15 million journeys were made at the station in the year 2013/14 which puts Queen Street in that tier of stations just behind the major London terminals and the major hubs in Birmingham, Manchester, Leeds, Edinburgh and over the road at Central. I'd presume that not everybody who uses the station is a commuter who travels light and knows exactly where they are going either. There must be a lot of tourists and long distance travellers making connections there who would loiter on the concourse and not know where they are going. Long story short, is the footprint of the station big enough? How does it compare in size to places like Liverpool Lime Street, Bristol Temple Meads, Sheffield (etc)?

 

[richa2002]

Looks rather hideous to me but I'm sure it'll have plenty of retail space. That's all Network Rail seem to care about :P.

 

[work-traveller]

Looks rather hideous to me but I'm sure it'll have plenty of retail space. That's all Network Rail seem to care about :P.

But Richa2002 - you can't be right there. I say this because when NR emailed me back about the appearance of the new façade they said it is intended 'to create an iconic 21st century building which would stand on its own merits'.

I suggested that the proposal is unsympathetic to it's surroundings and is also instantly forgettable - so we're both wrong it would seem!

 

[matchmaker]

How big is Queen Street exactly? I've only been there once and it was for about ten minutes in the off peak some fifteen years ago as I got off a train from Edinburgh and was on my merry way. Back then passenger numbers weren't reported at all (or if they were they were laughably inaccurate and difficult to access as a member of the public) so I never really considered capacity problems the station might have.

Looking at passenger numbers now it seems that more than 15 million journeys were made at the station in the year 2013/14 which puts Queen Street in that tier of stations just behind the major London terminals and the major hubs in Birmingham, Manchester, Leeds, Edinburgh and over the road at Central. I'd presume that not everybody who uses the station is a commuter who travels light and knows exactly where they are going either. There must be a lot of tourists and long distance travellers making connections there who would loiter on the concourse and not know where they are going. Long story short, is the footprint of the station big enough? How does it compare in size to places like Liverpool Lime Street, Bristol Temple Meads, Sheffield (etc)?

It's a very constricted site - roads on three sides and the Cowlairs tunnel at the fourth side.

 

[TheKnightWho]

What a hideous carbuncle. Glasgow has some of the finest looking buildings in the UK, and George Square itself is a delight. This frontage would be totally out of keeping with its surroundings. It might be ok for the likes of Milton Keynes or some dump like Leeds or Manchester.

Lets hope it's met with howls of outrage.

Well you're clearly a pleasant human being. Insulting and arrogant - not a great mix!

 

[NotATrainspott]

There's no point adding more surface platforms at Queen Street when the main limitation is Cowlairs Tunnel. There's no point fixing that if you then just run into terminus platforms. The only viable long-term solution is a heavy rail bored tunnel which would take out all the suburban services and leave only regional and long-distance services (e.g. to Edinburgh, Aberdeen and Inverness) running into the high level station.

 

[jopsuk]

by "bored tunnel" I take it you mean something passing under Central (with platforms there) and emerging on the south of the river, with local services then matched with suitable services that would otherwise terminate at Central?

 

[NotATrainspott]

by "bored tunnel" I take it you mean something passing under Central (with platforms there) and emerging on the south of the river, with local services then matched with suitable services that would otherwise terminate at Central?

Yes. The only services that could be freed up from Queen Street High Level by any form of light rail would be the 2tph Anniesland DMUs, which isn't really that much in the grand scheme of things.