An online pictorial hobby on Scotland's Railways, Past and Present

Queen Street to Falkirk via Cumbernauld
All Electric!

When the debacle between Falkirk Council, Falkirk FC and Railtrack over the improvements at Brockville were at their worst, an aspect of the future shape of rail in the central belt became more apparent. Falkirk Council and Falkirk FC wished to redevelop the dilapidated Brockville Stadium and move the football club out of the town centre.

Brockville just before demolition

The interesting aspect of this was the justification for the inordinate cost of redeveloping the railway bridge that crosses the Grahamston line at Hope Street beside Brockville. The bridge has a weight limit, and to allow supermarket delivery lorries to use it the bridge needed to be replaced. The requirement by Railtrack for the replacement was for the height over the line to be increased to accommodate overhead line equipment to run an electric railway. This would have been easy enough if it was not for the existing housing and roads infrastructure. The associated cost of doing this ran into hundreds of thousands of pounds and put the development into jeopardy.

Hope Street Bridge Falkirk

Aside to this, the silliest part of the Brockville argument was the cost that Railtrack had placed on a strip of land, previously a siding, that had lain unused for many years.

As it turns out Falkirk Council and the developers, Wm Morrison Supermarkets PLC, have arrived at a solution that removes the need for lorries to use the bridge, any future electrification cost will now need to be borne by Network Rail, or whoever is in charge at that time. Network Rail are also the proud owners of a completely landlocked and useless piece of land.

View of Hope Street bridge, Brockville stadium is to the right, the strip of land can be seen under the right hand side of the bridge. Photo taken on the footbridge at Grahamston station.

The electrification requirement was as a result of a study that suggested the electrification of the railway from Glasgow to Falkirk, with a view to continuing in other directions in the future.

The idea was to build a chord on the existing Bellgrove to Springburn line at Garngad to join the Springburn to Stepps line near Robroyston. This would allow the continuation of the Glasgow North suburban services through Stepps, a new station at Gartcosh, Greenfaulds, Cumbernauld, a new park and ride at Castlecary, Camelon and terminate at Falkirk Grahamston. The plan included a frequency of 4 trains per hour. Not a bad idea.

One downside to this would be the closure of Springburn station as we know it and the complete removal of Barnhill station.

Springburn Station 2003

I can find no sign that this proposal has lapsed, in fact the Scottish Executive appears to be in favour (here) so perhaps all that good work done by Falkirk Council and Morrisons might have to be dug up and replaced, and at twice the original exorbitant cost, paid for of course by Network Rail.