IBM railway station
 | This article needs additional citations for verification. (October 2010) |
IBM | |
|---|---|
| General information | |
| Location | Inverclyde |
| Coordinates | 55°55′46″N 4°49′38″W / 55.9295°N 4.8271°W |
| Managed by | Abellio ScotRail |
| Platforms | 1 |
| Other information | |
| Station code | IBM |
| History | |
| Original company | Scottish Region of British Railways |
| Key dates | |
| 9 May 1978 | Opened as I B M Halt - unadvertised |
| 16 May 1983 | Renamed I B M - unadvertised |
| 12 May 1986 | I B M became publicly advertised |
IBM railway station (formerly known as IBM Halt) is a railway station on the Inverclyde Line, 25½ miles (41 km) west of Glasgow Central.
Clinging to the south slope of Spango Valley on the Glasgow-Wemyss Bay line, IBM Halt opened on 9 May 1978[1] by British Rail to serve what was at that time a thriving computer manufacturing plant employing over 4,000 people. Originally, the stop was unadvertised and only peak time services stopped there, but now, despite the decline in the fortunes and working population of the plant, the facility is publicly advertised and all but one service make the stop.[2]
As the name suggests, it is located within the confines of a large facility formerly owned entirely by IBM, a former major employer for the town of Greenock. Parts of the site were sold off to companies such as Sanmina-SCI and Lenovo, which have now closed. By June 2009 half of the buildings had been demolished and the site was rebranded as Valley Park. Despite this, there are no plans to change the station name. Due to its location away from major housing areas and other transport links, the station is used primarily by people employed in Valley Park, but access to the station and its services by the general public is possible.
It was for a time the only station to have the suffix "halt" (two others have it now, Coombe Junction and St Keyne Wishing Well on the Looe Valley Line in Cornwall). The term "halt" had been removed from British Rail timetables and station signs and other official documents by 1974: the return of the term came in 1978 for the opening of IBM Halt and in the renaming of those two Cornish stations in 2008.
Services
There is a daily hourly service on the Inverclyde Line between Glasgow Central and Wemyss Bay.[3] Despite this, the annual patronage has declined dramatically, from well over 100,000 5 years ago, to about 6,000 in the most recent figures.[4]
| Preceding station |  National Rail
|
Following station | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Inverkip | Abellio ScotRail Inverclyde Line |
Branchton | ||
References
- ^ Railway Magazine July 1978
- ^ GB Rail Timetable (Table 219) and ScotRail Train Times booklet 8 December 2013
- ^ Table 219 National Rail timetable, May 2016
- ^ Office of Rail Regulation: Station Usage
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