Scotrail Milngavie Line - will extending Westerton Platform help?

[Rob Lightbody]

Hi,

Apologies if this isn't in the right area of the forum.

I live along the Milngavie line, and remember when it had good punctuality, and continue to suffer its very, very poor reliability now. Many locals are giving up completely, and using their cars to make sure they get to/from work on time.

Our MSP tells us that they are trying to get the line re-dualled which sounds good and obvious to me, but also that they're trying to get Westerton platform extended so that a train can pass, when a 6-carriage train is stopped there.

Extending Westerton sounds like an easy, obvious change to make - but will it help? Keen to hear from someone with first-hand knowledge.

Thanks,

- Rob

 

[MadMac]

Digging into the memory banks here, but I believe the issue stems from the newer units being a touch longer. What I think happens is that with a train going towards Anniesland stopped in the platform, it’s rear end keeps the junction “locked”, meaning that you can’t get a train on to the branch until he’s on the move.

 

[Altnabreac]

Fundamentally the punctuality at Milngavie was much better when:

• There were only 2tph instead of 4tph;
• Trains went to Airdrie rather than Edinburgh.

Given it is very unlikely anyone is going to propose reducing frequency or removing the Edinburgh services I suspect the only thing which will really make a big difference is redoubling.

Even restoring the double lead junction would be an improvement but frankly once you've done that I suspect the additional cost in redoubling all the way to Bearsden is probably very small compared to the potential benefit.

You probably could get a pretty big benefit from just Westerton - Bearsden without needing to do Hillfoot to Milngavie though.

The other scheme that would definitely help Milngavie is the Partick - Hyndland enhancement that is described in the Scotland Route Study:

Partick Signalling Upgrade/4-track Hyndland East Junction to Partickhill. Partick to Hyndland would operate more like a
‘metro-style’ network, with some potential limitation on linespeeds to ensure that trains can routinely meet defined
arrival / departure timeslots

This basically involves rebuilding Hyndland station with 4 platforms and effectively moving Hyndland East Junction to be between Hyndland and Partick stations. This isn't a cheap intervention though!

 

[NotATrainspott]

What blockers exist to extending the platforms south/eastwards? I didn't know about the 6 car issue - the addition of those extra trains to the North Clyde/Argyle line network clearly hasn't been the unqualified success you'd think it'd be. Extending and/or moving the platforms would solve this and could be a key part of redoubling the branch junction and enabling 6x23m sets (current trains are 6x20m) in future.