The Hidden Glasgow Forums

That water mark is just a circle that says preview

Credit to Preview for the pictures then

Some nice pics there. The 3rd 4th & 5th last pictures are actually Buchanan Street Station not St Enoch.


Sandie

Yeah, some great pics there. I remember the clock at Cumbernauld shopping center, and wondering where it had come from. I'm assuming it was the one attatched to the roof structure in those photos, and not the smaller looking one above the departures board?

One thing that's always puzzled me though, is why it was decided to close St Enoch instead of Central? Fair enough, Central looks a much nicer station than St Enoch from what I've seen, and then of course there's the low level station too. But surely St Enoch was better sited to cope with cross Glasgow Travel, having lines heading north, east, and access to the same lines covered by Central already in place? It seems much more appealing to have kept it around?

Would it be because St Enoch was covering up a huge expanse of prime shopping center land, slap bang at the end of Buchanan St that caused its downfall?

Anyway, I'd love to hear what you all think about this.

I also thought the same thing before when i was looking at old maps of Glasgow.

Why close down St Enoch's when it appeared to be well connected? Also if Central had been closed down, a lot of the lines appear as if they could have been picked up on the Southside and fed into St Enoch.

I am now starting to get interested in Glasgow's past Railways now, never thought i would become a would be Railway buff, but hey there you go!

Anyone know if The Titfield Thunderbolt is on over the hols?

Socceroo wrote:Anyone know if The Titfield Thunderbolt is on over the hols?

You've been converted!

Great wholesome film, but I don't know if it's on any time soon.

dazed_and_confused wrote:One thing that's always puzzled me though, is why it was decided to close St Enoch instead of Central? Fair enough, Central looks a much nicer station than St Enoch from what I've seen, and then of course there's the low level station too. But surely St Enoch was better sited to cope with cross Glasgow Travel, having lines heading north, east, and access to the same lines covered by Central already in place? It seems much more appealing to have kept it around?

It's a good question and one dont really know the answer to. Central had
already had electrification carried out on the High Level lines, so that may
have influenced things. Also, St Enoch sat on a very tight curve into the
station - this may have increased things like maintainence costs of the
tracks.

It was utter to folly to demolish this structure - simple as that. A 200+ bed
Victorian hotel building slap bang in the middle of your city centre and you
demolish it?? Look at the example of Manchester Central - now the
GMex - for how to put such a structure to good use, and that didn't even
have an attached hotel.

The northern half of the station itself could, surely, have been remodelled
slightly to allow trains to come in from the north east side (only platforms
1 & 2 had this access prior to closure) and access more of the platforms,
before 'reversing' out over the Clyde and vice versa. This could've been a
real genuine Crossrail hub, instead of the half-arsed attempt we're likely
to get. I also dont think the explosion of multiple units on Britains railways
could've been so accurately predicated years ago - steam was still the order
of the day in St Enoch before it closed.



James H

love the avatar James Wendy James did it for me

St Enoch had a few more problems, which were

1) No access route to the Cathcart Circle, Kirkhill or Neilston lines
2) No access route to the West Coast Main Line and suburban services to Motherwell, Lanark and Hamilton, although this potentially could have been built as a new spur through Gushetfaulds yard

Signalplan from the original semaphore box

Alycidon wrote:St Enoch had a few more problems, which were

1) No access route to the Cathcart Circle, Kirkhill or Neilston lines

True - I cant (even with the best will in the world) see a way around that one.



James H

Not without changing directions a couple of times

james73 wrote:It was utter to folly to demolish this structure - simple as that. A 200+ bed
Victorian hotel building slap bang in the middle of your city centre and you
demolish it?? Look at the example of Manchester Central - now the
GMex - for how to put such a structure to good use, and that didn't even
have an attached hotel.
James H

it might not have had a hotel attatched, but walk straight out of the station, and you were confronted with the fantastic Midland Hotel.


taken from in front of the Hotel


taken from the steps of the new gmex, Formerly Manchester Central

Re the recurrance of the the theme of 'why demolish St Enochs and not Central?'.

The clue lies in the era the decision was made in. It was the Beeching etc. era. Commuter trains were seen as part of the 'old Britain' and to be done away with as soon a possible. Beeching etc. visualised the ravaged railway network they left behind to be a 'strategic' one. It was to provide a core link to all the primary UK urban centres (more material there for a book on the Establishment's wish to retain strategic national control in times of threat?)

It was also the era in which the great British car hysteria accelerated (no pun intended). Suddenly we were all supposed to be going to do all our cross-city and metro area communting by car. Consequently the more localised commuting function of railways was deamed as also part of the 'old' Britain to be done away with.

Instead we would, in effect, degrade the public transport system by redirecting investment into the road and motorway system. Hence the whole knackered transport system we now have.

In these circumstances, the very suitability of St Enochs as a cross-city centre was probably a main factor in the decision to do away with it i.e. train-borne cross-city commuting was seen as 'redundant'.

Central's greater accessibility to the traffic from the south was probably also in it's favour. Incidentally, from the anecdotal evidence I have come across, St Enoch' hotel was seen as much inferior to Central. Certainly, Central was, for example, a favoured residence of the old Hollywood stars in its heydays.

escotregen wrote:Instead we would, in effect, degrade the public transport system by redirecting investment into the road and motorway system. Hence the whole knackered transport system we now have.

In these circumstances, the very suitability of St Enochs as a cross-city centre was probably a main factor in the decision to do away with it i.e. train-borne cross-city commuting was seen as 'redundant'.

I'd never thought of it like that before. I suppose hindsight is 20-20!

crusty_bint wrote:So is the St Enoch clock stil in Cumbernauld?

http://www.eveningtimes.co.uk/lo/features/7021426.html



James H