IBM railway station (formerly known as IBM Halt) is a currently disused

railway station Rail transport (also known as train transport) is a means of transport that transfers passengers and goods on wheeled vehicles running on rails, which are incorporated in tracks. In contrast to road transport, where the vehicles run on a pre ...

on the

Inverclyde Line The Inverclyde Line is a railway line running from Glasgow Central station through Paisley (Gilmour Street) and a series of stations to the south of the River Clyde and the Firth of Clyde, terminating at Gourock and Wemyss Bay, where it connect ...

, west of . Clinging to the south slope of Spango Valley on the Glasgow-Wemyss Bay line, IBM Halt was opened on 9 May 1978 by

British Rail British Railways (BR), which from 1965 traded as British Rail, was a state-owned company that operated most of the overground rail transport in Great Britain from 1948 to 1997. It was formed from the nationalisation of the Big Four British rai ...

to serve what was at that time a thriving IBM computer manufacturing plant, employing over 4,000 people. Originally, the stop was unadvertised and only peak-time services stopped there, but subsequently the station was publicly advertised, and all but one service stopped there. At the time the service was suspended it was served by an hourly service in each direction. As the name suggests, the station was located within the confines of a large facility formerly owned entirely by IBM, a major employer for the town of

Greenock Greenock (; sco, Greenock; gd, Grianaig, ) is a town and administrative centre in the Inverclyde council areas of Scotland, council area in Scotland, United Kingdom and a former burgh of barony, burgh within the Counties of Scotland, historic ...

until the plant closed. Parts of the site were sold off to companies such as

Sanmina-SCI Sanmina Corporation is an American electronics manufacturing services (EMS) provider headquartered in San Jose, California that serves original equipment manufacturers in communications and computer hardware fields. The firm has nearly 80 manufa ...

and

Lenovo Lenovo Group Limited, often shortened to Lenovo ( , ), is a Chinese Multinational corporation, multinational technology company specializing in designing, manufacturing, and marketing consumer electronics, Personal computer, personal computers, ...

, which have now closed as well. By June 2009, half of the buildings had been demolished, and the site was re-branded as Valley Park. Despite that, the station name did not change. Due to its location away from major housing areas and other transport links, the station was used primarily by people employed in Valley Park, but access to the station by the general public was possible. Until 16 May 1983, it was the only station to have the suffix " halt" (two others have it now, Coombe Junction and St Keyne Wishing Well on the

Looe Valley Line The Looe Valley Line is an community railway from Liskeard to Looe in Cornwall, United Kingdom, that follows the valley of the East Looe River for much of its course. It is operated by Great Western Railway. History The Looe Valley Line was ...

in Cornwall). By 1974, the term "halt" had been removed from

timetables, station signs, and other official documents. The return of the term came in 1978 for the opening of IBM Halt, and in the renaming of the two Cornish stations in 2008.

Service suspension

The station had its service suspended with effect from 9 December 2018, with ScotRail citing low patronage and anti-social behaviour on the nearby derelict IBM site. Services may be re-introduced once the site is rebuilt, although there is no fixed timeline for that to happen. A planning application for a mixed-use development on the IBM site, which would involve the reopening of the station, was submitted in February 2020.

Services

At the time when services were suspended, the station was served by an hourly service on the

between Glasgow Central and . Despite that, the annual patronage declined dramatically, from well over 100,000, to about 500 when the services were suspended.

References

{{Special purpose UK stations Disused railway stations in Greenock Railway stations opened by British Rail Railway stations in Great Britain opened in 1978 Railway stations in Great Britain closed in 2018 IBM facilities