“We won’t flood Queen Street - there’s a lot of drainage alterations in the station. The system’s been bastardised over the years, adding bits in here and there to try and solve it - sticking plaster. But we have a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to rip out what’s there and put in a robust system.”
If that’s not enough, platforms will be extended at Glasgow Queen Street station throat, all seven switches & crossings units will be renewed, new drainage will be installed, and signalling will be renewed.
During the entire process the Low Level station will remain open, as will the High Level concourse, although that will be heavily managed.
The slab tracking work is not part of EGIP, but the Queen Street redevelopment is. However, Reilly explains that you cannot do one without the other.
“The slab tracking is being done by EGIP, but only because it’s a life-expired asset. The track route asset manager said we can’t embark on EGIP and start running longer, faster electric trains on top of slab track which is opening up in front of us.”
The work about to take place at Queen Street was originally planned as a 17-week blockade, but has been extended to 20 weeks. Initially, Platforms 3, 4 and 7 will be extended to accommodate eight-car trains, although until 2019 only seven-car trains will run. Each platform will also be electrified. Trains using Platforms 3 and 4 will be able to go straight into the tunnel from the station, and be dedicated Edinburgh-Glasgow platforms. Trains using these platforms will not need to use crossovers in the tunnel.
So how will the extension be done?
Reilly explains: “Basically, on an existing concourse, we take out the platform wells on Platforms 2, 3, 4 and 5 and extend right into the existing concourse.
“If you order a shorter one in there that’ll go with the short width. And at some point later on this year we’ll start knocking down Consort House, the office block and the hotel extension. They’re being compulsorily purchased under a tourist scheme.”
While all this work is taking place, the station will remain operational. Unlike at King’s Cross, where two platforms were removed from service at various times to enable work to be completed, Reilly’s team will keep Queen Street station running.
“We’re going to do the platform wells, extend the platforms during the blockade, and cover them over. We can do about 75% of the platform well extensions during the blockade in the summer. Then when we come to knocking the buildings down, we can finish the platform wells. We’ll have to start thinking about concourse space to do the final extension to the concourse and the platform wells.”
But surely it would be easier to do it in one go, and get the station ready for eight-car trains now? After all, the ‘385s’ initially being delivered will be four-car trains, so they could operate as eight-car formations.
Reilly responds that the trains cannot be extended until the new concourse is created.
In terms of what NR is planning on the concourse itself, passengers walk onto it now and encounter a concourse that is quite small for a station of that magnitude. It’s also quite cluttered. If the platforms are extending right to the end of the new concourse, how will NR look to transform that?
Reilly explains: “It comes from a big glass box. It becomes a bigger area. The existing train shed is quite a nice feature of Queen Street, but you can only see it from the north side. The new building does allow you to see it from George Square, and it becomes a feature in its own right from George Square.”
Access will also be improved. “Any entrances or exits you have to use, you go through a narrow grubby stairway. It’s just not a nice way in and out of Queen Street. That will all change with the new building.”
In the early 1990s the Buchanan Galleries shopping centre was built, turning the station into a more confined space than it had been previously. There were plans to extend the centre again, which would have made the station subterranean (it would have extended out across the open space at the northern end of the station). That plan is now on hold, but still created issues, as Reilly explains.
“We couldn’t start now until they’re finished at the end of August. Initially we were all getting part of the car park, under 800sq metres compound in the car park, which was going to constrain how the different bodies were hemmed in. They were going to be building a multi-storey above us, but now we have a free reign of the car park to have our site facilities - to have a main site compound.”
The close proximity of Buchanan Galleries also means that NR has no plans to make Queen Street a ‘destination station’, similar to St Pancras or Birmingham New Street.
NR spokesman Nick King tells RAIL: “The problem is with Glasgow it’s already a destination - it’s hard to make it any more attractive. To a certain extent, the retail element in the Buchanan Galleries would be a plan.”
During the blockade, Network Rail and ScotRail will erect a big marquee and there will be a queuing system in place - passengers for Edinburgh stand in one queue, passengers for Helensburgh in another queue. That will be located in the spot currently used by the taxis. By the time this issue of RAIL goes to press, the taxis will have moved to the front of the station.
When the station re-opens on August 8, it won’t resemble a building site, but passengers will be able to notice a few differences. Overhead line equipment will be up, for a start.
Reilly elaborates: “The front end will look like it does today. So passengers will come in and say: ‘what’s changed?’ It won’t be until they walk down to the platforms, when they get to the end of the platforms and realise these are longer. There’s not going to be a real change for the passengers… not yet. So I think we need to stress this is part of our Phase 1.”
Phase 2 is when they get the actual new station. Reilly explains: “The station has to be finished by 2019. And that’s the date we’ll open the new station box. But the railway works need to get done a lot earlier than that. The 2016 target is for electrification!”
It must also help having a Network Rail/ScotRail Alliance north of the border (Phil Verster is Alliance Managing Director).
Says Reilly: “As an operator it makes him more amenable to help us. So getting possessions and changing times of possessions is a lot easier.”
He says of alliancing: “It’s not really affected me. The alliance was in place last year when we did Winchburgh. It was cohesive. We were involved with ScotRail more than we had been previously.”
Glasgow Queen Street will change. Reilly is confident of this, and confident that the changes will work. By 2019, despite NR’s protests, it seems Queen Street will indeed be a ‘destination station’.
- This feature was published in RAIL 795 on March 2 2016
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