I’ve been having a wee look at the south side railway stations at the time before the bridges across the Clyde leading to Central and St Enoch stations were built.
The two main passenger stations at the time were Bridge Street and South Side. The two main freight terminals were at General Terminus Quay and West Street.
The original Bridge Street Station was developed between 1839 and 1841. It was operated by the Glasgow and Paisley Joint Line.
Compared with today, the map shows a much narrower track crossing the various bridges leading into Bridge Street Station. The massive wide steel bridges needed for the multitude of tracks at the end of the century were yet to come.
The Glasgow Ardrossan and Paisley Canal terminated at Port Eglinton, close to the West Street Goods Station. This was covered over and track laid to become the Paisley Canal Line in 1881.
The remnants of Bridge Street Station, which you can currently see from the trains approaching Central Station, are of a completely different Victorian building, developed around 1889/ 1891. This was situated to the south of the original Bridge Street Station shown on the map. The photograph below shows the frontage of the station between Nelson Street to Kingston Street. This was a through station which closed in 1906 after Central Station had been extended to provide extra platforms.
South Side (or Southside) station was a Caledonian Railway terminus, initially used by the Glasgow Barrhead & Neilston Direct Railway when in opened in 1848. This company was absorbed by the Caledonian Railway in 1851. This station also provided passenger links to Lanarkshire, via Polmadie and Rutherglen, from 1849.
Goods trains used the branch line to General Terminus Quay, allowing access to Glasgow’s harbourside from industrial Lanarkshire.
The photograph below shows the site of Southside station, alongside the ruins of Caledonia Road Church.