Glasgow Central station tour
It is great to be reminded of just how the public loves the railway and how so many people appreciate its history. When I travelled up to Glasgow to meet ScotRail Alliance Managing Director Alex Hynes ( RAIL 841), he arranged a little bonus for me: a tour of Glasgow Central station - or rather the three levels underneath it (if we had more time we would have gone to the roof, too). I was, in effect, jumping the queue because the tours are booked up months in advance as they are so much sought after.
The idea for taking people down there was the brainchild of Paul Lyons, a lifelong railwayman who realised that there was huge tourism potential down there.
While still working in Network Rail’s office upstairs as his day job, he spends much of his time conducting tours for which he charges £13 - the money goes straight into NR’s coffers, although he is hoping to get a little bit back to pay for the hats which visitors are required to wear. It is at times a struggle dealing with the NR bureaucracy, but Lyons reckons his tours have netted three quarters of a million pounds since he started doing them four years ago.
It certainly is a treat for the money, not least because Lyons is a fabulous story teller. While his knowledge of the countless famous people who have been through the station is unparalleled, it is when he talks of the First World War that the emotion comes through - he talks about the dead highlanders being brought back from France, their bodies on stretchers, and how their womenfolk had to hire a couple of local unemployed for a shilling or two to take them home as the Army did not help them.
Lyons has commissioned a series of murals, and there is no doubt that eventually it should be turned into a permanent museum with Lyons as its curator. It is no surprise that he has amassed a staggering 2,253 reviews on Trip Advisor, nearly all fivestar.
The other high point was when we got down to the bottom level, where Lyons had found an abandoned platform, running at right angles to the buffer stops upstairs. It has been unused since before the Second World War, but can easily be reached by rail from the curve serving the two low-level platforms under the station, and consequently Lyons is hoping to bring in an old locomotive to provide a permanent display. He would be delighted to hear of any offers - email paullyons2@networkrail.co.uk