What if Prince's Street station hadn't closed?

[route101]

When you think about it serves the West End well and Lothian Road ! Though i wonder what services would use it if it was still open

 

[edwin_m]

When you think about it serves the West End well and Lothian Road ! Though i wonder what services would use it if it was still open

It was roughly midway between Waverley and Haymarket, not enough space between them to make another station worthwhile. Also a little bit away from either the Old Town or the New Town.

 

[47271]

Though i wonder what services would use it if it was still open

See my post #3, it wouldn't be much good for anything else.

 

[railjock]

See my post #3, it wouldn't be much good for anything else.

Linking it with another thread, I can’t imagine the walk from Princes Street station to Haymarket was any further than Queen Street to Central.

 

[jopsuk]

The centre and west end of Edinburgh are well served by Waverley and Haymarket, with the buses and trams filling the gaps.

 

[railjock]

The centre and west end of Edinburgh are well served by Waverley and Haymarket, with the buses and trams filling the gaps.

Absolutely.

 

[QueensCurve]

View attachment 40839
Terrific aerial pic here which shows the location more clearly. There are many other great images out there too. Credit to Canmore.org.uk

Correct me if I am wrong, but it opened onto Lothian Road, not Princes St?

 

[takno]

Correct me if I am wrong, but it opened onto Lothian Road, not Princes St?

Main entrance was the right-hand arch on the front of the Caledonian Hotel, which is separated from the Princes St/Lothian Road junction by a wide pavement and Rutland St. There was also a side entrance directly onto Lothian Road (and also one onto Rutland St on the other side I think).

 

[och aye]

See my post #3, it wouldn't be much good for anything else.

What about as a terminal for HS2 services?

 

[Indigo Soup]

The only way to do this would be by creating a Princes Street Low Level in the Haymarket Tunnels, the Caledonian routes sat and terminated at road level whereas the NB ran, and still runs, in and out of Waverley well below and through the city. Another reason to do away with the station sadly.

There was a proposal by the Caledonian itself to build low level platforms on the North British line under Princes Street station. Understandably, the North British wasn't interested.

 

[47271]

What about as a terminal for HS2 services?

Or I suppose it, or any other station, could be built on the Caley lines short of Lothian Road but around where Morrison Link leaves the West Approach. This would allow a close interchange with Haymarket without massive tunnelling activity under the Princes Street Station site.

Pie in the sky of course!

 

[Bevan Price]

If anyone is interested, I have posted a Princes Street departures timetable for 1955 in the Historic and Nostalgia forum.

 

[big all]

i can only ever remember visiting once wiether i had traveled from kingsnowe or some other trip i dont know in 65 i was only nine so memory quite sketchy although i can remember a few visits to dalry road sheds usually on the way to the baths

 

[snookertam]

At best i suppose a horribly long travelator could connect the sites. But it is maybe 3/4 of a mile.
A shuttle bus is probably the only answer

Essentially you get something like Glasgow Queen Street/Central, which is quite inconvenient to this day.

(Which is if the map is to be believed are actually closer together? Can that be right?)

Yes, Central and Queen Street are barely a 10 minute walk apart, and is only that long because of the 'grid-iron' plan of the streets in Glasgow City Centre. Waverley is at the East end of Princes Street, the old Princes Street station was at the west. As others have said, was one of the few logical closures in the 1960s.

 

[edwin_m]

Or I suppose it, or any other station, could be built on the Caley lines short of Lothian Road but around where Morrison Link leaves the West Approach. This would allow a close interchange with Haymarket without massive tunnelling activity under the Princes Street Station site.

Pie in the sky of course!

Some sort of yard (not sure what) extended northwards from the Caledonian in this area to finish just across the road from Haymarket. Might have been possible to squeeze a terminus station in here, though maybe only long enough for DMUs.

 

[47271]

Some sort of yard (not sure what) extended northwards from the Caledonian in this area to finish just across the road from Haymarket. Might have been possible to squeeze a terminus station in here, though maybe only long enough for DMUs.

That's the Morrison Street Goods Yard, which sits at Haymarket street level and over the existing running lines. I've parked my car on it quite a few times in the past. Here's a picture of it from three months ago with Haymarket Station clearly visible in the background, and the Haymarket tunnels marked on the levelled site.

https://www.railscot.co.uk/locations/M/Morrison_Street_Goods/slideshow.html

It's been a 50 year saga with development plan after development plan not happening. I understand that the costs of dealing with building over live rail tunnels has been one of the factors in developers struggling to deliver.

M&G bought the site in June, story too long to quote:

https://www.edinburghnews.scotsman....market-gap-site-sold-for-49-million-1-4749837

I wasn't so much thinking of using it as a station but using it as access to a station on its other side and on the old Caley line where it passes Morrison Link.

However, if the old Caley lines were to be reinstated to create additional capacity to the west of Edinburgh, or even right to Lothian Road, then not safeguarding this site for a role in rail interchange use could be considered to be a missed opportunity, especially since it's lain derelict for 50 years.

To repeat my earlier post, pie in the sky, but in a properly joined up world people would've looked at this in the context of Waverley struggling for capacity.

 

[big all]

lovely big car park at waverly you could have say 2 more through platforms and perhaps 2 terminating off say 6 or8 coach

 

[snookertam]

lovely big car park at waverly you could have say 2 more through platforms and perhaps 2 terminating off say 6 or8 coach

Problem at Waverley is that there's no scope for additional lines in and out due to the Mound/Haymarket tunnels at the west end, and Calton Tunnel at the east end.

I think the only way you increase capacity in Edinburgh generally is through additional platforms at Haymarket. Make greater use of platform 0, and possibly a platform 5 at the West end of the south line, although how much space there is for this I'm not sure. Doing so would allow for additional trains from the west/Fife that don't need to use Waverley. Haymarket is still quite conveniently situated for the West end of Princes Street/Charlotte Square.

Any additional services to/from the west probably doesn't work without the Almond Chord though.

 

[big all]

is the forth track through carlton tunnel still an available option ??

 

[JimLad]

The original 1848 Caley station was in Lothian Road, located where the office blocks are on the north side of Festival Square opposite the Usher Hall. The terminus moved to the Princes Street site in 1870, but the hotel was not completed until 1903. The relocation had been partly driven by a grandiose plan to extend the Caley line underground below the West End, along George Street as a cut-and-cover tunnel, to a new station on the site of the St James Centre, and then on to Leith. If this had happened the St James station, being just across Princes Street from Waverley, could easily have been linked by a new underground concourse and effectively have become an extended joint station providing the extra capacity required today.

In the 1970s a friend bought a flat in Rutland Square, backing on to the Princes Street station site. The previous owners were listed as the Caledonian Railway company – they had bought up most of the east side of the square to allow for demolition and future extension if required, but traffic never warranted it.

 

[Mutant Lemming]

Slightly off topic (by a couple of miles in a Northerly direction) if Leith Central had not been closed would 'Trainspotting' have been written ?

 

[och aye]

Slightly off topic (by a couple of miles in a Northerly direction) if Leith Central had not been closed would 'Trainspotting' have been written ?

Irvine Walsh would probably have just given the book a different title.

But then again, who knows what (if any) difference keeping the station in service would have meant for the area back in the 70's and 80's. I suspect not much, but then we don't have a time machine and thus will never know.

 

[och aye]

There was a proposal by the Caledonian itself to build low level platforms on the North British line under Princes Street station. Understandably, the North British wasn't interested.

I guess that would have negated the demand for Haymarket.

Had this proposal gone ahead, I'm sure Princes Street would still be with us today and this thread would have been named "What if Haymarket station hadn't closed?"

 

[Indigo Soup]

I guess that would have negated the demand for Haymarket.

Had this proposal gone ahead, I'm sure Princes Street would still be with us today and this thread would have been named "What if Haymarket station hadn't closed?"

Unlikely, I suspect - few cities kept more than one major station, and that normally only if the railway geography required it. Of the two main line stations in Edinburgh, Waverley was clearly more flexible than Princes Street, and the latter would have struggled to justify its' existence. As I suggested on the Manchester Central thread - it might have been useful today to provide additional terminal capacity, but for several decades it would just have been wasting BR's money.

The low level platforms, had they existed, might have been useful as part of an Edinburgh Metro - and you just know that Edinburgh would have a Metropolitan Railway, not a common Subway like Glasgow - but that seems like a rather unlikely development.

 

[Indigo Soup]

Doing some quick counting from the Network Rail Route Study, looking at the (perhaps optimistic) projections for 2043, there are 33 services per hour departing Edinburgh (and the same number arriving) in a westerly direction.

Of those, eight could sensibly operate from Princes Street, at the cost of losing connections to the north.

 

[Journeyman]

Unlikely, I suspect - few cities kept more than one major station, and that normally only if the railway geography required it. Of the two main line stations in Edinburgh, Waverley was clearly more flexible than Princes Street, and the latter would have struggled to justify its' existence. As I suggested on the Manchester Central thread - it might have been useful today to provide additional terminal capacity, but for several decades it would just have been wasting BR's money.

This is one of the things that Beeching recognised and was right to deal with - there were dozens of stations, depots, yards and even entire main lines that were built simply because of competition between rival companies in the Victorian era. They were hard to justify then, many were redundant after 1923, and extraordinary anachronisms after 1948. By the mid-1950s, they were luxuries that just could not be afforded.

Capacity at Waverley has been a problem in recent years, and it's extraordinary how busy the east end of the station is now compared to about thirty years ago. Constraints at Waverley make reopening the South Sub to passengers difficult, but I'm not sure there's a very good case for that anyway. But...the problems at Waverley would not be solved by having another station some distance away, and for many people it would make the railway more difficult to use. Edinburgh is fortunate in having such a well-located station that forms a single hub for connecting services all over the country.

Doing some quick counting from the Network Rail Route Study, looking at the (perhaps optimistic) projections for 2043, there are 33 services per hour departing Edinburgh (and the same number arriving) in a westerly direction.

Of those, eight could sensibly operate from Princes Street, at the cost of losing connections to the north.

That cost is far too high.

 

[Indigo Soup]

That cost is far too high.

Absolutely, there's no benefit unless connections can be maintained (they can't) or capacity constraints are so dire that they can't be resolved.

Off hand, the only UK cities to have more than one major station are London, Manchester and Glasgow. In all three cases it's because railway competition produced an arrangement of stations that couldn't be rationalised down to one without unreasonable sacrifices; in London, the single station would also have to be unreasonably large, though EustPanCross seems to be trying to achieve it anyway.

 

[Journeyman]

Absolutely, there's no benefit unless connections can be maintained (they can't) or capacity constraints are so dire that they can't be resolved.

I do get somewhat frustrated that the enthusiasts' stock answer to most of today's problems is usually re-opening something that has been shut for 50+ years, and was probably a very easy closure to justify in the first place.

For example, Woodhead closed to passengers because (a) it served fewer intermediate stations with any significant demand and (b) ran into Sheffield Victoria, and couldn't easily be diverted to Midland without significant and expensive work. I think the right choice was made. Many terminus rationalisations have made the railway easier to use, we shouldn't be attempting to make it harder!

Quite apart from Princes Street being affected by significant closures reducing the need for it to exist, a simple solution was found to divert its remaining services into Haymarket/Waverley, significantly improving onward connections to/from the remaining services. The West End of Edinburgh remains more than adequately served by Haymarket station, and its tram and bus connections.

 

[Elwyn]

I do get somewhat frustrated that the enthusiasts' stock answer to most of today's problems is usually re-opening something that has been shut for 50+ years, and was probably a very easy closure to justify in the first place.

For example, Woodhead closed to passengers because (a) it served fewer intermediate stations with any significant demand and (b) ran into Sheffield Victoria, and couldn't easily be diverted to Midland without significant and expensive work. I think the right choice was made. Many terminus rationalisations have made the railway easier to use, we shouldn't be attempting to make it harder!

Quite apart from Princes Street being affected by significant closures reducing the need for it to exist, a simple solution was found to divert its remaining services into Haymarket/Waverley, significantly improving onward connections to/from the remaining services. The West End of Edinburgh remains more than adequately served by Haymarket station, and its tram and bus connections.

I quite agree. I recall as a child travelling with my mother and some suitcases and having to change stations at Chester (or perhaps it was Wrexham). Really inconvenient and stressed my mother to bits. Much more convenient if you have just the one station where a change of trains is so much simpler. If I had just arrived at Waverley, the last thing I would want to do is trail over to Prince’s St for my connection. That’s the sort of arrangement that puts people in their cars.

 

[Journeyman]

I quite agree. I recall as a child travelling with my mother and some suitcases and having to change stations at Chester (or perhaps it was Wrexham). Really inconvenient and stressed my mother to bits. Much more convenient if you have just the one station where a change of trains is so much simpler. If I had just arrived at Waverley, the last thing I would want to do is trail over to Prince’s St for my connection. That’s the sort of arrangement that puts people in their cars.

Completely. Quite apart from anything else, the crowds in Princes Street can get ridiculous, and walking from one end to the other in August is almost impossible. Throw in some good Scottish rain as well, and you're right - people would find other ways to travel pretty quickly.