Greenock West railway station is a station in Greenock, Scotland, located on the Inverclyde Line which runs from Gourock to Glasgow Central. The route is currently operated by ScotRail under the auspices of Strathclyde Partnership for Transport. Each service to and from Glasgow on the Inverclyde Line stops at this station.
History
Starting with in 1812, Glasgow soon had Clyde steamer services on the River and Firth of Clyde. From 1841 the Caledonian Railway's Glasgow, Paisley and Greenock line offered quicker travel to its Greenock Cathcart Street terminus, about 5 minutes walk from Steamboat Quay (Custom House Quay) by a narrow squalid lane. The 1865 branch line to Wemyss Bay had mixed fortunes, from then the Glasgow and South Western Railway (G&SWR) competed with the Caledonian for parliamentary approvals. In 1869 G&SWR services began to Albert Harbour railway station (at Princes Pier), taking away steamer trade. Rival proposals were made for a line to Gourock, in June 1869 the Caledonian bought the existing Gourock harbour. It later realigned its route to run beside the cemetery to the south of Greenock Royal Infirmary, to a station at the junction between Inverkip Street and Newton Street.
Station design
The Caledonian Railway was granted permission in September 1882 to build the station, featuring "a very neat and substantial stone building in Renaissance style" at street level, with two "large and handsome" doorways from the booking hall onto Inverkip Street. The building also provided a stationmaster's room, a general waiting room and two first class waiting rooms; one for ladies and one for gentlemen.
The line and platforms are about below street level, in a cutting with red sandstone masonry retaining walls. The station building has a staircase down to Platform 2 (westbound), an enclosed footbridge leads across to the stair to Platform 1 (eastbound). The building is on the corner of Newton Street, which at the point it goes across the railway cutting changes direction to align with the grid plan of the west end of Greenock. From this point, the Newton Street tunnel runs directly under the street. About from the West Station, the tunnel goes under the older G&SWR tunnel taking that railway line down to Princes Pier. Beneath the upper end of Newton Street, where it merges into Lyle Road, the tunnel curves round towards Fort Matilda railway station.
Line construction
In December 1883 both the G&SWR and the Caledonian Railway promoted competing bills to Parliament for extending their respective railways to Gourock, the Caledonian's proposals were approved on 28 July 1884.
Construction work by the contractor, Hugh Kennedy & Son, Partick, began in 1885. Buildings next to the Cathcart Street station were demolished in 1886. Work began on 11 March 1888 on the long tunnel under Newton Street, connecting Greenock West to Drums near Fort Matilda, which employed thirty to forty men on each face, working day and night. The eastern section of the line was reported completed on 3 May 1889, and on 4 May a special train took Caledonian directors over the whole route to show them the progress of the work. The extension officially opened on 1 June 1889, with the first train departing Gourock at 05:25 taking workmen to Greenock and Port Glasgow, driven by the engineer Dugald Drummond who had designed and got built the Caledonian Railway 80 Class "Coast Bogies" for the route. The first arrival at Gourock with passengers from Glasgow at 07:20 met a "warm reception".
West Burn aqueduct, sugar refinery siding
The West Burn flows down adjacent to Inverkip Road, and originally powered water mills downstream from the station site, where a sugar refinery originated in 1826, and was expanded by John Walker and Co from 1848. The river was culverted under the G&SWR railway and Inverkip Street, then taken above the West Station platforms and railway line in an open metal trough forming an aqueduct leading to a reservoir or mill pond just to the north of the station.
The railway cutting includes an area to the northeast of the station. A branch line diverged from the westbound track after the Duncan Street bridge and, passing to the north of columns supporting the Bruce Street bridge, curved round into a goods yard with sidings extending to West Shaw Street. A track continued into Walker's refinery.