Argyle Street railway station

This article is about a railway station in Scotland. For Argyle station in Chicago, see Argyle (CTA).

Argyle Street
Argyle Street railway station exterior, on Argyle Street
Location
Place	Glasgow
Local authority	Glasgow
Coordinates	55.857°N 4.251°W / 55.857; -4.251
Operations
Station code	AGS
Managed by	First ScotRail
Number of platforms	2
Live arrivals/departures and station information from National Rail Enquiries
Annual rail passenger usage
2002/03 *	0.363 million
2004/05 *	0.467 million
2005/06 *	0.574 million
2006/07 *	0.617 million
2007/08 *	0.606 million
2008/09 *	0.912 million
Passenger Transport Executive
PTE	SPT
History
Original company	British Railways
5 November 1979	Opened
National Rail - UK railway stations
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z
* Annual estimated passenger usage based on sales of tickets in stated financial year(s) which end or originate at Argyle Street from Office of Rail Regulation statistics. Please note: methodology may vary year on year.

Argyle Street railway station is a busy station in central Glasgow, Scotland, on the Argyle Line, which connects the North Clyde lines at Partick with Rutherglen in the south-east of the city. The station is located below the thoroughfare whose name it bears. It has a narrow and often crowded island platform. It serves the Argyle Street shopping precinct as well as the St Enoch Centre.

History

The Glasgow Central Railway was formed in 1888 to link the Clydesdale Junction Railway and Lanarkshire and Ayrshire Railway with the Lanarkshire and Dunbartonshire Railway. By the time it was opened between 1894 and 1897, the GCR had been taken over by the Caledonian Railway. Although there were three stations under Argyle Street - Anderston, Glasgow Central and Glasgow Cross, there was no station on the site of the current station.

The line closed in 1964, but it was re-opened in 1979 and operated by the Scottish Region of British Railways by arrangement with the Greater Glasgow PTE. Although the Central Low Level station was re-opened, Glasgow Cross was not re-opened; instead the new Argyle Street station was constructed, midway between Glasgow Cross and Glasgow Central.

Station access

When the 1979 re-opening took place, a simple island platform was required, but footings of adjacent buildings and other physical constraints limited the available tunnel width for the new station. Moreover, the roadway above had not yet been pedestrianised, and street access and station building construction was not acceptable within the road limits. Accordingly, station building premises were constructed within the ordinary building line on the south side of the street; access to the platforms is via Argyle Street and Osborne Street into the ticket hall, then down an escalator into the station lower level, below track level. A passageway then leads under the westbound track and a second escalator leads up to the island platform which is located directly under Argyle street.

Lift access was not considered on the grounds of expense and the physical limits of the platform space.

During the 2006/7 escalator renewal work the only passenger access to the lower level (under platform) of the station was via the steep emergency exit steps.

Ticket barriers came into operation on 17 June 2011.^{[citation needed]}

Disabled access

This station does not have any disabled access due to the narrowness of the island platform; this is the source of many complaints.^{[citation needed]} Installation of lift access would require platform widening, which would in turn require widening of the tunnel, requiring massive alteration to the buildings adjacent.

Services

From 1979

Mondays to Saturdays

• 3 per hour - Dalmuir to Hamilton Circle (clockwise)
• 3 per hour - Dalmuir to Hamilton Circle (anti-clockwise)
• 1 per hour Limited Stop - Milngavie to Lanark

2006

On Monday to Saturdays, trains leave approximately once every ten minutes, destined for Dalmuir, Milngavie, Partick, Yoker, Singer, Lanark, Larkhall, Hamilton Central and Motherwell. During peak hours, express services to Cambuslang, continuting to Coatbridge via Hamilton Central are also available.

Services on Sundays are Balloch-Motherwell and Milngavie-Motherwell or Lanark. These are limited services that stop only during station opening hours, which are between 10am and 6pm on Sundays.

From 2007

On Monday to Saturdays, trains leave approximately every ten minutes, destined for Dalmuir, Milngavie, Partick, Yoker, Singer, Lanark, Larkhall, Hamilton Central and Motherwell. During peak hours, services to Coatbridge and Carstairs are also available.

Services on Sundays are Balloch-Motherwell, Milngavie-Motherwell or Lanark, and Partick-Larkhall. These are limited services that stop only during station opening hours, which are between 10am and 6pm on Sundays.

• Photo Gallery
• 

  The island platform at Argyle Street station

• 

  Rear entrance on Osborne Street

• 

  Argyle Street station concourse

• 

  The top of the escalators

Preceding station	National Rail			Following station
Bridgeton		First ScotRail Argyle Line		Glasgow Central
Rutherglen		First ScotRail Argyle Line (Larkhall - Dalmuir Express)		Glasgow Central

References

Sources

• Butt, R. V. J. (1995). The Directory of Railway Stations: details every public and private passenger station, halt, platform and stopping place, past and present (1st ed.). Sparkford: Patrick Stephens Ltd. ISBN 1-8526-0508-1. OCLC 60251199. 
• Jowett, Alan (March 1989). Jowett's Railway Atlas of Great Britain and Ireland: From Pre-Grouping to the Present Day (1st ed.). Sparkford: Patrick Stephens Ltd. ISBN 1-8526-0086-1. OCLC 22311137. 
• Jowett, Alan (2000). Jowett's Nationalised Railway Atlas (1st ed.). Penryn, Cornwall: Atlantic Transport Publishers. ISBN 0-9068-9999-0. OCLC 228266687. 
• RAILSCOT on Glasgow Central Railway