Glasgow Crossrail
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Glasgow Crossrail is a proposed railway development in Central Scotland.
Since the 1970s, it has been widely recognised that one of the main weaknesses of the railway network in Greater Glasgow is that rail services emanating from the South (which would normally terminate at Central main line station) cannot bypass Glasgow city centre and join the northern railway network which terminates at Glasgow Queen Street Station - and vice-versa for trains coming from the North. At present rail users who wish to travel across Glasgow have to disembark at either Central or Queen Street and traverse the city centre by foot, or by road.
The proposed Crossrail initiative involves re-opening and electrifying the largely disused City Union Line for passenger use in conjunction with new filler sections of track which will connect the North Clyde Line, Ayrshire Coast Line, Cathcart Circle Line together, therefore allowing through running of services through the centre of Glasgow in a North-South axis.
The development would also include a number of new (or redeveloped) stations.
- High Street Station on the North Clyde Line would be demolished and relocated.
- A new station will be built at Glasgow Cross, tucked behind the Mercat Building, whilst another new station has been proposed in the Gorbals, opening the area up to the railway network for the first time since the 1960's.
- West Street subway station would be expanded and remodelled so as to provide another interchange between the railway network and the Subway.
The possibility of constructing an additional chord which links Crossrail to the West Coast Main Line over the former site of the Gushetfaulds railfreight terminal has also been discussed.
The scheme has been heavily pushed by Strathclyde Partnership for Transport (SPT) for many years and a £500,000 study was commissioned by the Scottish Executive in 2003 to investigate the feasibility and costs of the link. The outcome of this was published in 2005, with funding and Government approval pending. However, the scheme was once again omitted from a review published by Network Rail and Transport Scotland in the summer of 2006, suggesting that any chances of the scheme becoming a reality still largely uncertain.
