, symbol_location = gb , symbol = rail , image = File:Kilmarnock Railway Station 2016.jpg , caption = Main entrance to Kilmarnock railway station, showing the upgraded station clock to the right , borough =

Kilmarnock Kilmarnock (, sco, Kilmaurnock; gd, Cill Mheàrnaig (IPA: ʰʲɪʎˈveaːɾnəkʲ, "Marnock's church") is a large town and former burgh in East Ayrshire, Scotland and is the administrative centre of East Ayrshire, East Ayrshire Council. ...

East Ayrshire East Ayrshire ( sco, Aest Ayrshire; gd, Siorrachd Àir an Ear) is one of thirty-two council areas of Scotland. It shares borders with Dumfries and Galloway, East Renfrewshire, North Ayrshire, South Ayrshire and South Lanarkshire. The headquar ...

, country = Scotland , coordinates = , grid_name = Grid reference , grid_position = , manager =

ScotRail ScotRail Trains Limited, trading as ScotRail ( gd, Rèile na h-Alba), is a Scottish train operating company that is publicly owned by Scottish Rail Holdings on behalf of the Scottish Government. It has been operating the ScotRail franchise ...

, platforms = 4 , code = KMK , transit_authority = SPT , original =

Kilmarnock and Troon Railway The Kilmarnock and Troon Railway was an early railway line in Ayrshire, Scotland. It was constructed to bring coal from pits around Kilmarnock to coastal shipping at Troon Harbour, and passengers were carried. It opened in 1812, and was the ...

Glasgow, Paisley, Kilmarnock and Ayr Railway The Glasgow, Paisley, Kilmarnock and Ayr Railway (GPK&AR) was a railway in Scotland that provided train services between Glasgow, Kilmarnock and Ayr. It opened its first line, between Glasgow and Ayr, in stages from 1839 to 1840. The section ...

, pregroup =

Glasgow and South Western Railway The Glasgow and South Western Railway (G&SWR) was a railway company in Scotland. It served a triangular area of south-west Scotland between Glasgow, Stranraer and Carlisle. It was formed on 28 October 1850 by the merger of two earlier railways ...

, postgroup = LMS , years = 6 July 1812 , events = Original station opened by K&TRButt (1995), page 133 , years1 = 4 April 1843 , events1 = Original station closed and second station opened by GPK&AR , years2 = 20 July 1846 , events2 = Second station closed and current station opened by GPK&AR , mpassengers = , footnotes = Passenger statistics from the Office of Rail and Road , embedded = Kilmarnock railway station (

Scottish Gaelic Scottish Gaelic ( gd, Gàidhlig ), also known as Scots Gaelic and Gaelic, is a Goidelic language (in the Celtic branch of the Indo-European language family) native to the Gaels of Scotland. As a Goidelic language, Scottish Gaelic, as well as ...

: ''Stèisean rèile Chille Mheàrnaig'') is a

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 Track (rail transport), tracks. In contrast to road transport, where the ...

Scotland Scotland (, ) is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Covering the northern third of the island of Great Britain, mainland Scotland has a border with England to the southeast and is otherwise surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean to ...

. The station is managed by

and is served by trains on the Glasgow South Western Line. One of the earliest railway stations in Scotland, the

opened on 6 July 1812, until it was replaced by the

on 4 April 1843.

History

Opening

The first station in Kilmarnock was opened by the

on 6 July 1812, one of the earliest stations in Scotland. It was replaced by the

on 4 April 1843. with the opening of their main line from . The third and current station was opened on 20 July 1846 by the

– this was connected to Ardrossan via two years later and to via Dumfries & Gretna Junction in 1850. The current route to Glasgow (via ) – the Glasgow and Kilmarnock Joint Railway was completed in 1871 jointly by the G&SWR and Caledonian Railway. Services on the Irvine branch and via the old main line to Dalry both fell victim to the

Beeching Axe The Beeching cuts (also Beeching Axe) was a plan to increase the efficiency of the nationalised railway system in Great Britain. The plan was outlined in two reports: ''The Reshaping of British Railways'' (1963) and ''The Development of the ...

in the mid-1960s – the former closed to passengers on 6 April 1964 (and to all traffic in October 1965) and local trains on the latter were withdrawn on 18 April 1966 . Services to the G&SWR terminus at Glasgow St Enoch also ended soon after (on 27 June), with services henceforth running to and from Glasgow Central. The old K&T line also lost its passenger service for several years (local trains ended on 3 March 1969), but these were subsequently reinstated in May 1975 when the boat trains from Stranraer to Carlisle were diverted from their former route via Annbank & Mauchline. The Dalry line remained in use for freight and occasional long-distance passenger trains until 23 October 1973, when it was closed to all traffic and subsequently dismantled.

Current operations and station description

The station is built well above street level and is accessed via either a subway and stairs or a more circuitous but step-free route along a narrow access road. Network Rail undertook a project to install lifts which started in February 2018 and was completed in January 2019. The station has a total of four platforms; two north-facing bays for both terminating Glasgow services and trains on the Glasgow to Stranraer via Kilmarnock route, on which trains reverse out of the station towards the junction with the Troon line. Two through platforms serve through services between Glasgow, Dumfries, Carlisle and Newcastle. Platform 3 is used for most of the services between Glasgow and Carlisle/ Newcastle via Dumfries in both directions however platform 4 does see some use. Platform 3 and 4 are 57 miles from Dumfries and 89 miles from Carlisle. The bay platforms (1 and 2) as well as Platform 3 are covered by a partly glazed roof and directly accessible from the ticket office. Platform 4 is accessed via a subway and stairs, and afforded only a bus stop style shelter although it does have a departure board.

Facilities

The station is fully staffed seven days a week, with the ticket office open from 06:30 (Mon-Sat)/10:15 Sundays until 23:30. A self-service ticket machine is also provided for use outside opening hours and for collecting pre-paid tickets. Other amenities on offer in the main buildings include toilets, a vegan deli, a shop selling Scottish food and gifts, an Active Travel HUB, waiting room and public wi-fi access. Train information is offered via CIS displays, timetable posters, automated announcements and customer help points. Step-free access is available to platforms 1-3 only.

Signalling

The present Kilmarnock

signal box In signal processing, a signal is a function that conveys information about a phenomenon. Any quantity that can vary over space or time can be used as a signal to share messages between observers. The '' IEEE Transactions on Signal Processing' ...

is located north of the station, in the vee of the junction. Opened on 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 ra ...

on 12 April 1976, it is a plain brick building containing an NX (entrance-exit) panel on the upper storey. It replaced four mechanical signal boxes in a scheme that saw the track layout greatly simplified. Originally, the box worked Track Circuit Block to Hurlford signal box and

Scottish Region The Scottish Region (ScR) was one of the six regions created on British Railways (BR) and consisted of ex-London, Midland and Scottish Railway (LMS) and ex-London and North Eastern Railway (LNER) lines in Scotland. It existed from the creation o ...

Tokenless Block over the single lines to Barassie Junction and Lugton signal boxes. Kilmarnock signal box was severely damaged in a suspected

arson Arson is the crime of willfully and deliberately setting fire to or charring property. Although the act of arson typically involves buildings, the term can also refer to the intentional burning of other things, such as motor vehicles, wate ...

attack on 25 December 2006 but was repaired and returned to full operation within weeks. The train service to Glasgow is partly limited by the single track northwards as far as Lochridge Junction (near Stewarton). This formerly extended all the way as far as Barrhead (with just one loop at Lugton) following track rationalisation in the early 1970s and restricted the frequency of services that could be operated. A "dynamic passing loop" (in effect a redoubling of the section between Lugton and ) was installed to help rectify this in 2009. The service frequency was increased to half-hourly from the 13 December 2009 timetable change. New sidings were installed in 2009-2010 along a short section of the trackbed of the old route to Dalry to facilitate the increased coal train traffic.

Features of the station

Kilmarnock railway viaduct

Constructed from 1843 until 1850, the Kilmarnock railway viaduct is a bridge crossing the town centre of

. It is a most distinctive feature of the town centre with 23 masonry arches. It was built in the 1840s to enable the

Glasgow Glasgow ( ; sco, Glesca or ; gd, Glaschu ) is the most populous city in Scotland and the fourth-most populous city in the United Kingdom, as well as being the 27th largest city by population in Europe. In 2020, it had an estimated popu ...

–

line to continue to . At present, the viaduct is currently lit by blue lights when it is dark, which makes it more of a noticeable feature in the town. This was part of the Kilmarnock town centre regeneration. The programme carried out on the viaduct was considered a "success". In April 2012, the bridge's safety was upgraded after a man was seriously injured after jumping 40 ft from the top of the railway viaduct.

Kilmarnock station clock

Outside of the railway station, a clock is operated by

East Ayrshire Council East or Orient is one of the four cardinal directions or points of the compass. It is the opposite direction from west and is the direction from which the Sun rises on the Earth. Etymology As in other languages, the word is formed from the fa ...

and

. In 2011, the clock received a grant from the Railway Heritage Trust to undergo a regeneration scheme that began in late 2011 and was completed in March 2012. Despite an expensive upgrade in 2008, it was announced in December 2022 following a full cabinet meeting of East Ayrshire Council that the station clock at the Kilmarnock railway station was to be removed and landscaped "with immediate affect" due to continuous technical difficulties preventing the clock and its LED lighting from working properly.

Services

Kilmarnock - Abellio 156499 Glasgow service in paltform 2

December 2021–present

On Monday to Saturdays: There are 2 trains per hour to/from Glasgow for most of the day with journey times taking between 40 and 50 minutes depending the service taken. Monday to Saturday: There are 8 trains per day south of Kilmarnock towards Dumfries and Carlisle, 6 trains go to Carlisle (one train continues to Newcastle) and 2 trains go to Dumfries. These operate to a roughly 2 hourly frequency however the frequency is uneven so gaps of up to 3 hours are possible at certain times of the day. There are 6 trains per day to Girvan, 4 of which continue to Stranraer, (and all call at Ayr) running a to a 2 to 4 hourly frequency (with peak extras). Sundays: On Sundays, There is 1 train per hour to Glasgow calling at stations, There is a limited service of just 2 trains per day to Dumfries and Carlisle, There is no service to/from Ayr or Stranraer https://www.scotrail.co.uk/sites/default/files/assets/download_ct/20233_glasgow-barhead_kilmarnock_carlisle.pdf Due to Lamington Viaduct on the West Coast Mainline being severely damaged by the Storms of 2015-16,

Virgin Trains Virgin Trains (legal name West Coast Trains Limited) was a train operating company in the United Kingdom owned by Virgin Rail Group, a joint venture between Virgin Group and Stagecoach Group, Stagecoach, which operated the InterCity West Coast ...

services from

Carlisle Carlisle ( , ; from xcb, Caer Luel) is a city that lies within the Northern English county of Cumbria, south of the Scottish border at the confluence of the rivers Eden, Caldew and Petteril. It is the administrative centre of the City ...

were diverted along the Glasgow South Western Line and called at Kilmarnock en route to Glasgow Central. These were irregularly scheduled services and ceased once Lamington Viaduct was repaired and the WCML reopened on 22 February 2016.

Routes

References

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External links

YouTube video of Kilmarnock Junction, Station and Wabtec Rail works
{{Railway stations served by Abellio Scotrail Category B listed buildings in East Ayrshire Listed railway stations in Scotland Railway stations in East Ayrshire Former Glasgow and South Western Railway stations Railway stations in Great Britain opened in 1812 Railway stations in Great Britain closed in 1843 Railway stations in Great Britain opened in 1843 Railway stations in Great Britain closed in 1846 Railway stations in Great Britain opened in 1846 SPT railway stations Railway stations served by ScotRail Buildings and structures in Kilmarnock 1843 establishments in Scotland