Alloa railway station
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, symbol_location = gb , symbol = rail , image = 2019 at Alloa station - entrance.JPG , borough =
Alloa Alloa (Received Pronunciation ; educated Scottish pronunciation /ˈaloʊa/; gd, Alamhagh, 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 ...
,
Clackmannanshire Clackmannanshire (; sco, Clackmannanshire; gd, Siorrachd Chlach Mhannainn) is a historic county, council area, registration county and Lieutenancy area in Scotland, bordering the council areas of Stirling, Fife, and Perth & Kinross and the hi ...
, country = Scotland , coordinates = , grid_name =
Grid reference A projected coordinate system, also known as a projected coordinate reference system, a planar coordinate system, or grid reference system, is a type of spatial reference system that represents locations on the Earth using cartesian coordin ...
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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 a ...
, platforms = 1 , code = ALO , original =
Stirling and Dunfermline Railway The Stirling and Dunfermline Railway was a railway in Scotland connecting Stirling and Dunfermline. It was planned by the Edinburgh and Glasgow Railway to get access to the mineral deposits on the line of route, but also as a tactical measure t ...
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North British Railway The North British Railway was a British railway company, based in Edinburgh, Scotland. It was established in 1844, with the intention of linking with English railways at Berwick. The line opened in 1846, and from the outset the company followe ...
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LNER LNER may refer to: *London and North Eastern Railway, a railway company in the United Kingdom from 1923 until 1947 *London North Eastern Railway, a train operating company in the United Kingdom since 2018 * Liquid neutral earthing resistor, a type ...
, years = 28 August 1850 , events = Opened , years1 = 7 October 1968 , events1 = Closed , years2 = 15 May 2008 , events2 = Official reopening ceremony of new station , years3 = 19 May 2008 , events3 = New station opened to regular passenger traffic on different site , mpassengers = , footnotes = Passenger statistics from the
Office of Rail and Road The Office of Rail and Road (ORR) is a non-ministerial government department responsible for the economic and safety regulation of Britain's railways, and the economic monitoring of National Highways. ORR regulates Network Rail by setting its ...
Alloa railway station 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 tracks. In contrast to road transport, where the vehicles run on a pre ...
in the town of
Alloa Alloa (Received Pronunciation ; educated Scottish pronunciation /ˈaloʊa/; gd, Alamhagh, 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 ...
,
Clackmannanshire Clackmannanshire (; sco, Clackmannanshire; gd, Siorrachd Chlach Mhannainn) is a historic county, council area, registration county and Lieutenancy area in Scotland, bordering the council areas of Stirling, Fife, and Perth & Kinross and the hi ...
,
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 ...
, which was re-opened on Monday, 19 May 2008.


History

The original Alloa station was opened by the
Stirling and Dunfermline Railway The Stirling and Dunfermline Railway was a railway in Scotland connecting Stirling and Dunfermline. It was planned by the Edinburgh and Glasgow Railway to get access to the mineral deposits on the line of route, but also as a tactical measure t ...
(S&DR) on 28 August 1850 when the line from Oaklay to
Alloa Alloa (Received Pronunciation ; educated Scottish pronunciation /ˈaloʊa/; gd, Alamhagh, 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 ...
was opened. In 1850 the main station building was to the west of Greenfield Bridge and south of the rails, it consisted of a ticket office leading onto a platform and an island platform with a "passenger shed" on the north of the running lines, both "arranged as to accommodate parties intending to travel on either the main line or the Tillicoultry branch". There was a goods yard, with a large shed, to the north and sidings both sides, on the east of Greenfield Bridge was a two-road engine shed and turntable. Passengers for
Stirling Stirling (; sco, Stirlin; gd, Sruighlea ) is a city in central Scotland, northeast of Glasgow and north-west of Edinburgh. The market town, surrounded by rich farmland, grew up connecting the royal citadel, the medieval old town with its me ...
were able to continue via ferry along the
River Forth The River Forth is a major river in central Scotland, long, which drains into the North Sea on the east coast of the country. Its drainage basin covers much of Stirlingshire in Scotland's Central Belt. The Gaelic name for the upper reach of th ...
to Stirling under their own arrangements, the S&DR advertised times and fares between Alloa and Dunfermline but made no mention of a ferry. The station became both a junction and a through station on 3 June 1851 when the branches to and Alloa Harbour with a terminal at opened. The station was called Alloa North (and sometimes North Alloa) between 1875 and 1882 after which the North was dropped. Subsequent links were added southwards to via the
Alloa Railway The Alloa Railway was intended to bridge the River Forth linking Alloa with the south without using a ferry. History The railway was authorised on 11 August 1879, it started from a new junction, Dunmore Junction, on the South Alloa branch of ...
in 1885. The network was finally completed in 1906 with the opening of a second line to Dunfermline via and
Longannet Longannet power station was a large coal-fired power station in Fife, and the last coal-fired power station in Scotland. It was capable of co-firing biomass, natural gas and sludge. The station stood on the north bank of the Firth of Forth, ...
along the northern bank of the Forth estuary. This line carried a passenger service until July 1930. Freight services ceased on 6 April 1981. A number of alterations were undertaken in 1885 to accommodate the Caledonian Railway using the station when the Alloa swing bridge and branch opened. Prior to these improvements the local newspaper described the NBR station as a "small and dingy-looking erection which has ... for many years been an eye-sore to the town's people, and quite inadequate for the traffic; and although it has been improved upon from time to time, these improvements have only made its incapacity to meet the requirements of modern tastes and the greatly increased traffic the more apparent." To accommodate the CR at its station the NBR firstly opened a new goods station on 21 September 1885 to the east of Glasshouse Loan on the Harbour branch in order to create some space at the passenger station, it also undertook some alterations to the station itself prior to a major rebuilding scheduled for the following few years. The CR opened its own goods station at a site on the western side of Glasshouse Loan, directly opposite the NBR one. The CR set up its own passenger booking office at Alloa station, in what had formerly been the parcel office. The rebuilt station opened on 22 November 1887, there was a new station building on the east side of Greenfield Bridge with a gated entrance from the bridge onto a forecourt. The booking hall was described as a "fine spacious room" with offices for both Companies, and access to the parcel office "fitted up with one of the modern hydraulic hoists". A wide staircase went down to the platform where there were four waiting rooms; general, ladies, ladies' first-class and gentlemen's first-class. There was a refreshment room, telegraph office, "commodious lavatories" and railway administration offices. The wide
island platform An island platform (also center platform, centre platform) is a station layout arrangement where a single platform is positioned between two tracks within a railway station, tram stop or transitway interchange. Island platforms are popular on ...
, with two inset bays at its west end extended a long way westward under Greenfield Bridge and had extensive awnings.


Closure

During the mid-1960s the lines around Alloa were progressively closed. The passenger service to Tillicoultry was the first to go on 15 June 1964 (with total closure following on 25 June 1973, with the ending of coal-mining at
Dollar Dollar is the name of more than 20 currencies. They include the Australian dollar, Brunei dollar, Canadian dollar, Hong Kong dollar, Jamaican dollar, Liberian dollar, Namibian dollar, New Taiwan dollar, New Zealand dollar, Singapore dollar, U ...
). The line across the swing bridge to Larbert followed in January 1968. The station itself together with the main former S&DR line from via through Alloa and on to Dumfermline Upper was then closed to passengers on 7 October 1968. Freight services continued until 1979, though the nearby Alloa marshalling yard to the west remained open until 1988 (latterly used only by the trip freights to the yeast factory at
Menstrie Menstrie (Scottish Gaelic: ) is a village in the county of Clackmannanshire in Scotland. It is about east-northeast of Stirling and is one of a string of towns that, because of their location at the foothill base of the Ochil Hills, are collec ...
). Following the full closure of Alloa station, a leisure centre was built on the site, though a narrowed formation and a single track was kept for freight services. The remainder of the original S&DR through the station towards the east continued in use for colliery traffic until 1979 (this has since been lifted) and the Kincardine branch until 6 April 1981. This latter route was left derelict but intact for some years and has since been reopened, along with the station (see below).


Re-opening

The new station building was designed by IDP Architects. In 2008, the railway reopened, with a new Alloa station situated to the east of its predecessor, due to the earlier construction of the leisure centre. A passenger-operated self-service ticket machine was installed in July 2008; the illustrated ticket was issued at Stirling station. Under Scottish Executive funding, the line between
Stirling Stirling (; sco, Stirlin; gd, Sruighlea ) is a city in central Scotland, northeast of Glasgow and north-west of Edinburgh. The market town, surrounded by rich farmland, grew up connecting the royal citadel, the medieval old town with its me ...
and Alloa was reopened to both passenger and freight traffic, with a key benefit being a reduction in congestion on the
Forth Railway Bridge The Forth Bridge is a cantilever railway bridge across the Firth of Forth in the east of Scotland, west of central Edinburgh. Completed in 1890, it is considered a symbol of Scotland (having been voted Scotland's greatest man-made wonder in ...
. Construction work started in 2005, with track laying commencing at the end of September 2006. It was originally projected that the station would reopen to passenger traffic in the Summer of 2007 but this date was then put back to allow for the upgrading of a
level crossing A level crossing is an intersection where a railway line crosses a road, Trail, path, or (in rare situations) airport runway, at the same level, as opposed to the railway line crossing over or under using an Overpass#Railway, overpass ...
. The official opening took place on Thursday, 15 May 2008. Passenger use of the new railway station has greatly exceeded forecasts and since re-opening the service has been improved by increasing evening and Sunday frequencies from two-hourly to hourly and by adding the peak hour service to Edinburgh in 2009. In its first year the station was used by 400,000 passengers, against a forecast of 155,000.


Facilities

The station has a nearby car park with 64 spaces but is not permanently staffed. The completion of electrification of the railway between Polmont Junction, Stirling, Dunblane and Alloa during 2018 allowed the introduction of electric-powered rolling stock for services from 9 December 2018.


Services

The current service (2020) gives an majority half-hourly train to Stirling and Glasgow seven days a week, with an additional peak hour commuter service to Edinburgh running six days a week. The journey time to Stirling is timetabled to take 9–10 minutes. Services are usually operated by a
Class 385 The British Rail Class 385 ''AT200'' is a type of electric multiple unit built by Hitachi Rail for Abellio ScotRail. A total of 70 units have been built, divided into 46 three-car and 24 four-car sets. Based on the design of the Hitachi A-train, ...
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References


Bibliography

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External links

* {{Railway stations served by Abellio Scotrail Railway stations in Clackmannanshire Former North British Railway stations Railway stations in Great Britain opened in 1850 Railway stations in Great Britain closed in 1968 Beeching closures in Scotland Railway stations opened by Network Rail Railway stations in Great Britain opened in 2008 Railway stations served by ScotRail 1850 establishments in Scotland 1968 disestablishments in Scotland 2008 establishments in Scotland IDP Architects railway stations Alloa