ECML services terminating at Glasgow Queen Street

[Gathursty]

Currently, trains from London King's Cross go to Glasgow Central if they are extended from Edinburgh but was it always thus?

Did they ever try using Queen Street instead? What's the story behind the extensions going to one over the other?

Thanks.

 

[Southern Dvr]

Currently, trains from London King's Cross go to Glasgow Central if they are extended from Edinburgh but was it always thus?

Did they ever try using Queen Street instead? What's the story behind the extensions going to one over the other?

Thanks.

I'd hazard a guess that it was related to Haymarket to Glasgow Central being electrified.

 

[Gathursty]

Do you think now Edinburgh to Queen Street is electrified there could be a rethink over which terminal to use?

 

[Bayum]

Do you think now Edinburgh to Queen Street is electrified there could be a rethink over which terminal to use?

Doubtful. The number of ECML trains to Glasgow have decreased too.

 

[SeanG]

This link may be helpful - at the time of writing though the site is down for maintenance

https://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/i...ity-125-services-out-of-glasgow-queen-street/

 

[Mag_seven]

Did they ever try using Queen Street instead?

Yes, in the 80s there was a service to London Kings Cross from Glasgow Queen St in the morning and a return from London Kings Cross in the evening. On the Glasgow - Edinburgh stretch they ran in the path of a 47/7 push pull set.

 

[Darandio]

I seem to recall it blocked the station throat at Queen Street over 2 or 3 platforms as well.

 

[Mag_seven]

I seem to recall it blocked the station throat at Queen Street over 2 or 3 platforms as well.

It had to use Platform 7.

 

[Bald Rick]

Yes they went to Queen St. They were also too long for the platforms.

They were swapped to Central when Carstairs - Edinburgh was electrified.

When they went to Queen St, the Edinburgh - Glasgow service was half hourly, with no other services between the two cities other than the awfully slow Shotts line DMU. Now it is very different.

The current LNER services are similarly too long for Queen St - unless they split at Edinburgh, which would take up capacity at Waverley. Similarly the service would take up capacity on the E&G, and at Queen St, which I suspect is at a premium.

 

[David M]

Are the platforms at Queen Street long enough to cope?
Edit - new replies cam in when I was typing so sort of answered.

 

[Mag_seven]

Similarly the service would take up capacity on the E&G, and at Queen St, which I suspect is at a premium.

It was at a premium back then as well which is why I suspect the HST ran on the path of a 47/7 push pull set rather than take up an additional path. Of course all that was possible back then because it was one railway. (can you imagine Scotrail being asked to give up a path for LNER today?)

 

[Bald Rick]

can you imagine Scotrail being asked to give up a path for LNER today?)

Actually, I can, and that sort of thing happens all over the Network. Albeit Scottish Government May have a dim view of relinquishing a path for a Sassenach TOC

 

[hexagon789]

Currently, trains from London King's Cross go to Glasgow Central if they are extended from Edinburgh but was it always thus?

Did they ever try using Queen Street instead? What's the story behind the extensions going to one over the other?

Thanks.

As others stated there were HSTs into Queen Street until around the time of the ECML electrification.

In 1988 there were two each way, to and from King's Cross plus one which formed an internal service only and then ran ECS. There was also a CrossCountry service, to Paignton, which ran from Queen Street, simply an extension of one which later ran only from Edinburgh.

The E&G had HST differentials specially installed for the HSTs in 1979, and from 1985 these were allowed to be used by the 47/7+Mk3 sets with the 47/7s then being permitted 100mph instead of the usual 95 for a 47.

Post-158 introduction the differentials were removed, in about 1992. It used to be possible for instance to go straight to 100 leaving Haymarket westbound, now it's 90 until around Edinburgh Park.

 

[Taunton]

Operationally it's difficult to integrate a service which has just run 400 miles into one of the slots of a regular and frequent interval shuttle service on from Edinburgh to Glasgow. The arrival reliability into Edinburgh just isn't there.

 

[hexagon789]

Operationally it's difficult to integrate a service which has just run 400 miles into one of the slots of a regular and frequent interval shuttle service on from Edinburgh to Glasgow. The arrival reliability into Edinburgh just isn't there.

Much easier when frequencies were lower of course

 

[Taunton]

Much easier when frequencies were lower of course

The only such I recall from my time up there in the 1970s was a summer Saturday Met-Cam dmu from Glasgow to Whitley Bay, which I remember actually seeing elderly passengers with holiday luggage getting into at Queen Street, which I believe actually had to be pathed via Falkirk Grahamston to allow a 27x2 push-pull to overtake.

 

[65477]

This brings to mind a journey I and mrs 65477 made back in the 1980s; we managed to arrange it so we both had business meetings in Scotland on the same Friday so we got both our employers to refund us the day return air fare but allow us to use the money to travel as we wanted.

So we booked a weekend break in Glasgow and travelled up on the sleeper on the Thursday, stayed a couple of nights in Glasgow and back on the Sunday.

Due to where we lived at the time we wanted to go back to Stevenage so we had a collection of tickets including a Saver plus an excess to allow travel by ECML .

The Sunday excess was marked "not valid via Carlisle". Were were booked on the Sunday morning train from Queen Street to Kings Cross. Due to engineering works the HST reversed in Edinburgh, including turning on the suburban triangle, then ran to Newcastle via Carlisle.

Reversal at Newcastle was avoiding by the simple expedient of carrying on northbound and then over the high level bridge.

 

[hexagon789]

The only such I recall from my time up there in the 1970s was a summer Saturday Met-Cam dmu from Glasgow to Whitley Bay, which I remember actually seeing elderly passengers with holiday luggage getting into at Queen Street, which I believe actually had to be pathed via Falkirk Grahamston to allow a 27x2 push-pull to overtake.

In the later-1970s (going off the 1976/77 TT) there were 3tph Glasgow-Falkirk-Edinburgh, two fast via Falkirk High (one only calling Haymarket) and one stopping service via Falkirk Grahamston, alternating with the Stirling/Dunblane stopper.

I think that even allowing for that system there was easily space for an extra service outside the standard pattern.

 

[Ianno87]

Yes they went to Queen St. They were also too long for the platforms.

They were swapped to Central when Carstairs - Edinburgh was electrified.

When they went to Queen St, the Edinburgh - Glasgow service was half hourly, with no other services between the two cities other than the awfully slow Shotts line DMU. Now it is very different.

The current LNER services are similarly too long for Queen St - unless they split at Edinburgh, which would take up capacity at Waverley. Similarly the service would take up capacity on the E&G, and at Queen St, which I suspect is at a premium.

Plus the set then goes to Polmadie for overnight stabling from Central today.

 

[CW2]

On one occasion the Lounge Car 40513 was added to the HST set forming the morning Queen Street - Kings Cross service, making it a 2+9 formation, in connection with some dignitaries going by train. There was all manner of special arrangements in place to get it all to run as smoothly as possible. Sadly one of the power cars was ill, so the whole shebang came to a halt blocking Queen Street tunnel mouth in all directions. It took a bit of sorting out - and official guests were detrained for a (much) later E+G service.

 

[Bevan Price]

I'd hazard a guess that it was related to Haymarket to Glasgow Central being electrified.

Except possibly when there was engineering work, ECML trains west of Edinburgh always used Glasgow Queen Street; one of my earliest runs on the E&G was on a Scarborough to Glasgow Queen Street summer saturday service, taken forward from Edinburgh by a Class 27 - and with the rear coaches lying beyond the platform end on arrival at Queen Street. (I forget what brought the train into Edinburgh).

 

[edwin_m]

The two-hourly London-Edinburgh-Glasgow trains started with the ECML and Edinburgh-Carstairs electrifications, which created the first electrified route between Glasgow and Edinburgh. At the time Euston-Glasgow was only every two hours and they were timed to give a roughly hourly London-Glasgow service, the much faster ECML route meaning that the journey times were similar either way. They also allowed a useful through link between Motherwell and Edinburgh, with EMUs on the Carstairs route later added to make this up to hourly.

The improvement in speed and frequency of WCML Glasgow service essentially made the ECML route redundant for London-Glasgow journeys. However the Scottish Central Belt has quite strong links with North East England. So it was decided to take off all but one of the London trains, using the stock to strengthen ECML services further south, and extend CrossCountry trains instead.

 

[Bald Rick]

There was quite a row in 1992/3 between InterCity East Coast and InterCity West Coast re revenue allocation on London - Glasgow flows. ICWC had the larger share, but only just.

 

[hexagon789]

There was quite a row in 1992/3 between InterCity East Coast and InterCity West Coast re revenue allocation on London - Glasgow flows. ICWC had the larger share, but only just.

Possibly because the journey time difference wasn't huge? At one point the ECML was actually quicker!

 

[Mag_seven]

At one point the ECML was actually quicker!

I really don't think so apart from say on Sundays back in the day when some Glasgow-Euston services were diverted to run via the G&SW adding about at least another hour onto the journey time.

 

[hexagon789]

I really don't think so apart from say on Sundays back in the day when some Glasgow-Euston services were diverted to run via the G&SW adding about at least another hour onto the journey time.

On the contrary, the Scottish Pullman was once booked to Glasgow Central in 4hrs57, with the Royal Scot at just over 5hrs in the same timetable. I'd need to check my timetables to see which dates that applied but I know it's not the 1992 TT - in that one the Royal Scot was a blistering 4h43; the Scottish Pullman was ~5h08 iirc.

 

[Bald Rick]

Possibly because the journey time difference wasn't huge? At one point the ECML was actually quicker!

The row was because ICWC didn’t believe that ICEC could have captured that proportion of the revenue in only a year or two, a the tradiotnal route to Glasgow was always from Euston. Worth pointing out thatthis row was internal to BR about revenue allocation!

 

[hexagon789]

The row was because ICWC didn’t believe that ICEC could have captured that proportion of the revenue in only a year or two, a the tradiotnal route to Glasgow was always from Euston. Worth pointing out thatthis row was internal to BR about revenue allocation!

Ah, fair enough then. You wonder how they managed to close the gap so quickly, the stock was quite comparable in quality as was the service.

 

[Cheshire Scot]

Until 1978 the Fort William Sleeper ran via Queen St from / to Kings Cross - 20.00 from Kings X, 04.35 from Edinburgh, I think it was 22.10 from Queen St going south, also summer Saturday trains Queen St to Scarborough & return ran well into the seventies, with relief trans on the busier Saturdays.

In the sixties (and presumably earlier years) there was an overnight (no sleepers) Colchester to Queen St & return I'd guess probably mainly a parcels train with a few passenger coaches. This took the 04.35 path from Edinburgh having attached the Kings X to Fort William portion there.

The Queen of Scots Pullman train ran every morning (not Sun) Kings X - Leeds - Harrogate- Edinburgh - Queen St until 1964 and was partnered by the North Briton which made a daily round tip from Leeds to Queen St via Newcastle and survived a few years longer.

At least one Edinburgh Kings Cross working conveyed a portion from/to Queen St at least until the early 1960s.

So, historically quite a number of ECML services to/from Queen St reflecting that station being the main LNER station in Glasgow.

 

[Bald Rick]

Ah, fair enough then. You wonder how they managed to close the gap so quickly, the stock was quite comparable in quality as was the service.

I may be wrong, but I think it was the first foray into APEX tickets.