Stirling railway station is a

railway station Rail transport (also known as train transport) is a means of transport using wheeled vehicles running in railway track, tracks, which usually consist of two parallel steel railway track, rails. Rail transport is one of the two primary means of ...

located in

Stirling Stirling (; ; ) is a City status in the United Kingdom, city in Central Belt, central Scotland, northeast of Glasgow and north-west of Edinburgh. The market town#Scotland, market town, surrounded by rich farmland, grew up connecting the roya ...

Scotland Scotland is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It contains nearly one-third of the United Kingdom's land area, consisting of the northern part of the island of Great Britain and more than 790 adjac ...

. It is located on the former

Caledonian Railway The Caledonian Railway (CR) was one of the two biggest of the five major Scottish railway companies prior to the 1923 Grouping. It was formed in 1845 with the objective of forming a link between English railways and Glasgow. It progressively ex ...

main line between

Glasgow Glasgow is the Cities of Scotland, most populous city in Scotland, located on the banks of the River Clyde in Strathclyde, west central Scotland. It is the List of cities in the United Kingdom, third-most-populous city in the United Kingdom ...

and

Perth Perth () is the list of Australian capital cities, capital city of Western Australia. It is the list of cities in Australia by population, fourth-most-populous city in Australia, with a population of over 2.3 million within Greater Perth . The ...

. It is the junction for the branch line to and is also served by trains on the

Edinburgh to Dunblane Line Edinburgh is the capital city of Scotland and one of its 32 Council areas of Scotland, council areas. The city is located in southeast Scotland and is bounded to the north by the Firth of Forth and to the south by the Pentland Hills. Edinburgh ...

and long-distance services to

Dundee Dundee (; ; or , ) is the List of towns and cities in Scotland by population, fourth-largest city in Scotland. The mid-year population estimate for the locality was . It lies within the eastern central Lowlands on the north bank of the Firt ...

and

Aberdeen Aberdeen ( ; ; ) is a port city in North East Scotland, and is the List of towns and cities in Scotland by population, third most populous Cities of Scotland, Scottish city. Historically, Aberdeen was within the historic county of Aberdeensh ...

and to

Inverness Inverness (; ; from the , meaning "Mouth of the River Ness") is a city in the Scottish Highlands, having been granted city status in 2000. It is the administrative centre for The Highland Council and is regarded as the capital of the Highland ...

via the

Highland Main Line The Highland Main Line is a railway line in Scotland. It is long and runs through the central Scottish Highlands, mainly following the route of the A9 road (Scotland), A9, and linking a series of small towns and villages with Perth, Scotland, ...

History

Stirling railway station geograph-2327951-by-Ben-Brooksbank

Stirling was first connected to the

Scottish Central Railway The Scottish Central Railway (SCR) was formed in 1845 to link Perth and Stirling to Central Scotland, by building a railway line to join the Edinburgh and Glasgow Railway near Castlecary. The line opened in 1848 including a branch to South All ...

, with southbound services to Greenhill commencing on 1 March 1848 and northbound services to

on 22 May 1848. In 1853 the Stirling and Dunfermline Railway opened a station known as Stirling East, directly next to the main station. The

Forth and Clyde Junction Railway The Forth and Clyde Junction Railway was a railway line in Scotland which ran from Stirling to Balloch. It was built with the expectation of conveying coal from the Fife coalfields to a quay at Bowling on the Clyde for onward transport, but th ...

opened a line to three years later serving the main station. Through services to/from the

Callander and Oban Railway The Callander and Oban Railway company was established with the intention of linking the sea port of Oban to the railway network. This involved a long line from Callander through wild and thinly populated terrain, and shortage of money meant that ...

also served the station from 1870. Following a competition, the current station buildings were constructed by Caledonian Railway in 1912-15 by James Miller and William A. Paterson, at a cost of £36,291. They have undergone several refurbishments (with minor layout changes), the most recent change being the installation of lifts to enable better access to the footbridge linking Platform 2 with Platforms 3 to 8. The line to Balloch lost its passenger services in 1934 and closed as a through route in 1942, although the section from Stirling to

Port of Menteith Port of Menteith () is a village and civil parish in the Stirling district of Scotland, the only significant settlement on the Lake of Menteith. It was established as a burgh of barony, then named simply Port (), in 1457 by King James III of Sco ...

remained open for freight until 1959. The main line from Stirling to Dunfermline was not scheduled for closure under the

Beeching Axe The Beeching cuts, also colloquially referred to as the Beeching Axe, were a major series of route closures and service changes made as part of the restructuring of the nationalised railway system in Great Britain in the 1960s. They are named ...

, but it was nevertheless closed in 1968. It has since been partly reopened as far as Alloa (see below). Oban services via the C&O line ended with the Beeching cuts in 1965, and the main terminus in Glasgow for services from Stirling changed from the former C.R. station at to Queen Street the following year. In 1968 Stirling East Station and Stirling Station were formally merged. A

Motorail A motorail train or accompanied car train (ACT) is a passenger train on which passengers can take their car or automobile along with them on their journey. Passengers are carried in normal passenger carriages or in sleeping carriages on longer ...

service ran between London and Stirling until 1989. In 2008, the travel centre was refurbished to improve disabled access, including power-assisted entrance doors, a wheelchair-accessible counter, and improved customer information systems. In 2009, a shelter was erected on Platforms 9 and 10, and LED display boards replaced the CRT screens, including new displays for Platforms 9 and 10 and the bay Platforms 7 and 8. (Up to c.1988, a large flip-dot display was located above the main concourse; this was removed and the space filled in with a large "Welcome to Stirling Station" sign.) From December 2009, automated announcements were provided, replacing the manual announcements made from the supervisor's office on Platform 3. In 2013, a new public address system was installed. In 2018, work began to refurbish the footbridge. It was raised to allow the tracks underneath to be electrified, and lifts installed to allow step-free access to platform 9. The refurbished bridge was opened on 9 September 2019.

Description

The station building was constructed in 1915 by James Miller, replacing the original 1848 structure designed by Andrew Heiton, and is listed by

Historic Environment Scotland Historic Environment Scotland (HES) () is an executive non-departmental public body responsible for investigating, caring for and promoting Scotland's historic environment. HES was formed in 2015 from the merger of government agency Historic Sc ...

as a

Category A listed building Category, plural categories, may refer to: General uses *Classification, the general act of allocating things to classes/categories Philosophy * Category of being * ''Categories'' (Aristotle) * Category (Kant) * Categories (Peirce) *Category (V ...

. Miller's design continues the circular spaces and flowing curves of his celebrated Wemyss Bay station. The station houses a Neighbourhood Policing Team (NPT) from the

British Transport Police British Transport Police (BTP; ) is a national special police force that polices the railway network of England, Wales and Scotland, which consists of over 10,000 miles of track and 3,000 stations and depots. BTP also polices the London Under ...

. Currently two officers work from Stirling and cover Stirling, , , , , , and . The Stirling Area Command of the Forth Valley Division of

Police Scotland Police Scotland (), officially the Police Service of Scotland (), is the national police force of Scotland. It was formed in 2013, through the merging of eight regional police forces in Scotland, as well as the specialist services of the Scottis ...

cover the territorial area the Stirling NPT cover and will assist when the BTP officers are not available.

Services

Stirling - Abellio 170472 Glasgow stopping service

Trains operate north to (three trains per hour), to , and (hourly), (four trains per day), south west to (three trains per hour), and east to Edinburgh Waverley (half-hourly).GB eNRT May 2016 Edition, Tables 229 & 230 The service to Alloa and Dunfermline was withdrawn in October 1968, but the reopening of the Stirling-Alloa-Kincardine rail link partially restored that service with an hourly service from Glasgow to as an extension of the

Croy Line The Croy Line is a suburban railway route linking Glasgow Queen Street and Croy in Scotland. It is part of the Strathclyde Partnership for Transport network. Following completion of the project to reopen the line to Alloa to passenger ser ...

services. This utilises the existing DMU from Glasgow, which previously spent considerable time in one of the bay platforms at Stirling with engines idling, but now utilises the layover time to make the return trip to & from Alloa. Most services are operated by

ScotRail ScotRail Trains Limited, trading as ScotRail (), 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 as an operator of las ...

; with one train per day southbound to London Kings Cross and one train per day northbound to Inverness operated by

London North Eastern Railway London North Eastern Railway (LNER) is a British train operating company which operates most services on the East Coast Main Line. It is owned by DfT Operator for the Department for Transport (DfT). The company's name echoes that of the Londo ...

; and one train per day Sunday – Friday southbound to London Euston and northbound to Inverness operated by

Caledonian Sleeper ''Caledonian Sleeper'' is the collective name for overnight Sleeping car, sleeper train services between London and Scotland, in the United Kingdom. It is one of only two currently operating sleeper services on the railway in the United Kingdom ...

. The station has nine platforms, though they are ordered 2 to 10. The site of Platform 1 is now occupied by a car park; the platforms were not renumbered. The bay platforms at the north end of the station (Platforms 4 and 5) survive but are not available to passenger trains. The bay platforms at the south end of the station (Platforms 7 and 8) are not normally used for weekday services, but the first services of the day use trains that have been stabled there overnight and they have been fitted with passenger information displays. The lines from Glasgow to Alloa and from Polmont to Dunblane were resignalled and electrified by 2018 as part of the rolling modernisation work associated with the Edinburgh to Glasgow Improvement Programme.

Summary

*4tph to

Glasgow Queen Street Glasgow Queen Street () is a passenger railway terminus serving the city centre of Glasgow, Scotland. It is the smaller of the city's two mainline railway terminals (the larger being Glasgow Central) and is the third-busiest station in Scotland ...

(plus 5tpd from ) *2tph to Edinburgh Waverley (plus 5 tpd from Inverness) *2tph to

Alloa Alloa (Received Pronunciation ; Scottish pronunciation /ˈaloʊa/; , possibly meaning "rock plain") is a town in Clackmannanshire in the Central Lowlands of Scotland. It is on the north bank of the Forth at the spot where some say it ceases to ...

*2tph to

Dunblane Dunblane (, ) is a town in the council area of Stirling in central Scotland, and inside the historic boundaries of the county of Perthshire. It is a commuter town, with many residents making use of good transport links to much of the Central Be ...

*1tph to *1tph to *11tpd to Inverness *1tpd to London Kings Cross

References

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External links