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Largs railway station is a
railway station Rail transport (also known as train transport) is a means of transport using wheeled vehicles running in railway track, tracks, which usually consist of two parallel steel railway track, rails. Rail transport is one of the two primary means of ...
in the town of
Largs Largs () is a town on the Firth of Clyde in North Ayrshire, Scotland, about from Glasgow. The original name means "the slopes" (''An Leargaidh'') in Scottish Gaelic. A popular seaside resort with a pier, the town markets itself on its histor ...
,
North Ayrshire North Ayrshire (, ) is one of 32 Council areas of Scotland, council areas in Scotland. The council area borders Inverclyde to the north, Renfrewshire and East Renfrewshire to the northeast, and East Ayrshire and South Ayrshire to the east and s ...
,
Scotland Scotland is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It contains nearly one-third of the United Kingdom's land area, consisting of the northern part of the island of Great Britain and more than 790 adjac ...
. The station is managed by
ScotRail ScotRail Trains Limited, trading as ScotRail (), 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 as an operator of las ...
and is owned by
Network Rail Network Rail Limited is the owner (via its subsidiary Network Rail Infrastructure Limited, which was known as Railtrack plc before 2002) and railway infrastructure manager, infrastructure manager of most of the railway network in Great Britain. ...
. It is on the
Ayrshire Coast Line The Ayrshire Coast Line is one of the lines within the Strathclyde suburban Railway, rail network in Scotland. It has 26 stations and connects the Ayrshire coast to Glasgow. There are three branches, to , and , all running into the high leve ...
, south west of .


History

The station was originally opened on 1 June 1885 by the
Glasgow and South Western Railway The Glasgow and South Western Railway (G&SWR) was the third biggest of the five major Scottish railway companies prior to the 1923 Grouping. It served a triangular area of south-west Scotland between Glasgow, Stranraer and Carlisle, Cumbria, Ca ...
, as the terminus of the extension of the former
Ardrossan Railway The Ardrossan Railway was a railway company in Scotland, whose line was built in the mid-19th century. It primarily ran services between Kilwinning and Ardrossan, as well as freight services to and from collieries between Kilwinning and Perceton. ...
to Largs. The station originally had four platforms with additional stabling lines, a glazed canopy and a footbridge spanning the platforms. By the time the electrification project commenced only three platforms and the centre stabling line were in operation. A fire in 1985 destroyed the station
signal box A signal is both the process and the result of transmission of data over some media accomplished by embedding some variation. Signals are important in multiple subject fields including signal processing, information theory and biology. In ...
and shortly afterwards work was undertaken to remodel & rationalise the track layout and modernise the signalling ahead of the planned electrification (as part of the wider Ayrshire Coast scheme). Once this was completed by
British Rail British Railways (BR), which from 1965 traded as British Rail, was a state-owned company that operated most rail transport in Great Britain from 1948 to 1997. Originally a trading brand of the Railway Executive of the British Transport Comm ...
in 1987, only two platforms remained in use with the line southwards having been reduced to
single track Single may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media * Single (music), a song release Songs * "Single" (Natasha Bedingfield song), 2004 * "Single" (New Kids on the Block and Ne-Yo song), 2008 * "Single" (William Wei song), 2016 * "Single", by ...
. The standard 25 kV A.C overhead system was used, with the signalling system supervised from Paisley signalling centre.


1995 demolition in accident

On 11 July 1995 an early morning Class 318 from failed to stop. It crashed through the buffers and the back of the ticket office, severely damaging parts of the station building, and demolished two shops before coming to a stop next to the taxi rank on Main Street. An eye-witness described the noise with the station shaking as the train "was ploughing through it like a set of dominoes", then "the whole corner of the building disintegrating". Although the driver, the guard and three others suffered injuries, there was considerable relief that no-one was killed.


Reconstruction: new station building

For several years there were discussions of redevelopment and replacement buildings, and in 2001 a small ticket office was constructed. A £200,000 makeover (including a new station building) was completed in 2005, albeit much simpler than the original.


Services

There is an hourly service to and from Glasgow Central (including Sundays), with additional services during weekday peak periods. Trains usually use Platform 2.


References


Notes


Sources

* * * {{Railway stations served by Abellio Scotrail Train collisions in Scotland Railway stations in North Ayrshire Former Glasgow and South Western Railway stations Railway stations in Great Britain opened in 1885 Railway stations serving harbours and ports in the United Kingdom Railway stations served by ScotRail SPT railway stations Largs