Glasgow has two main train stations: Queens Street, which has trains to Edinburgh (spit!) and the North, and Central Station which has trains to the south.
Central Station is the larger of the two. It opened in 1879 but by 1890 it was extended slightly only to be found to be inadequate again by the turn of the century. A massive rebuild was undertaken between 1901 and 1905 including the erection of an eight track bridge over the River Clyde.
Queen Street Station was built by the Edinburgh and Glasgow Railway and opened in 1842. Just outside the station is Cowlairs tunnel, a 1 in 42 slope which trains had to be pulled up by a stationary engine until 1909.
Queen Street Station was the one I was most familiar with as a child. We never travelled anywhere by train, but the Number 51 Bus, which went between Queenslie and Douglas Street in the north of the city centre, had a stop on the Cathedral Street Bridge where we would alight to walk down to Argyle Street and Lewis’s. This walk took us through the station and I remember thinking that to travel by train was to travel in style.
The station closest to me heart, however, is Central as it was outside Peckham’s on the concourse where I first met my husband on a blind date. Awwwww!
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