Carmyle railway station

History

Carmyle station was opened in 1866 by the Rutherglen and Coatbridge Railway on their route between Coatbridge and Glasgow. The line had originally been commissioned in 1865, but for goods traffic only - passenger services started on 1 August the following year, with Carmyle opening on that date.

Thirty years later it became a junction, upon the opening of the Glasgow Central Railway route from Bridgeton (then known as Bridgeton Cross) in 1897. This intersected the older route at the station, before continuing southwards to join the Lanarkshire and Ayrshire Railway at a triangular junction between Kirkhill and Newton via Westburn Viaduct. This route gave access to the low level platforms at Glasgow Central and thence to the northwestern suburbs via Anderston and Maryhill Central.

Both lines were operated from the outset (and eventually taken over) by the Caledonian Railway, before passing to the London, Midland and Scottish Railway at the 1923 Grouping. They then became part of the Scottish Region of British Railways upon nationalisation in January 1948.

The Glasgow Central Railway line & platforms closed to passengers on 5 October 1964 (and completely in April 1966), whilst the Coatbridge line ones followed suit on 7 November 1966, both as a result of the Beeching Axe. The GCR route was subsequently dismantled and few traces of it remain today (the old platforms were demolished when the M74 motorway extension was built), but line from Rutherglen was retained for freight traffic (mainly to/from the Ravenscraig steelworks) and periodic passenger diversions. It was then reopened as the Whifflet Line with financial backing from the Strathclyde Passenger Transport Executive in 1993, with Carmyle regaining its passenger service on 4 October that year. It was the first station stop on the reopened line after leaving the main line station at Glasgow Central, as the main line platforms at Rutherglen (which the original R&CR had served) had been closed following the reopening of the Argyle Line in 1979.

Electrification of the route through the station was completed in December 2014, which wasn't in time for the Glasgow Commonwealth Games as originally planned. The old Diesel Multiple Unit service from Central High Level has been replaced by EMUs running via Rutherglen and the Argyle Line. This has seen the restoration of the link to Central Low Level and beyond originally lost back in 1964.

Services

A half-hourly service operates to and from Dalmuir via Glasgow Central Low Level through to Whifflet on Mondays to Saturdays. Every second trains is extended to/from Motherwell. On Sundays there is now an hourly service between Motherwell & Balloch that calls in each direction (prior to the December 2014 timetable alterations Sunday services only ran for the month prior to Christmas and were extended to/from Shotts).