Seen Around … Glasgow

Tuesday 30th January 2024

This month’s Seen Around is a special miscellany garnered on a recent couple of days I spent in Glasgow where I was delighted to make a presentation to the McGills Group ‘management team talk’ Awayday held at Hampden Park Stadium, as you can see above.

As usual, while in the City a few oddities caught my eye.

Glasgow Airport’s TVM

As you come out of domestic arrivals at Glasgow’s main airport there’s a ScotRail Ticket Vending Machine which is nice. But there’s no railway station at the airport and you have to be a mind reader to work out what tickets it sells.

Taking a look at the “popular destinations” on the home screen I guessed from the fares quoted that the tickets include travel into Glasgow city centre on First’s Airport Express route 500, as the prices quoted are higher than if travelling from Glasgow Central or Queen Street. But there’s no consistency apparent in the pricing. For example the first three fares quoted above to Edinburgh, Stirling and Oban are £2.70, £8.40 and £18.50 more expensive than the off-peak return fares from Central or Queen Street.

I was travelling to Mount Florida, a local station south of Glasgow, close to Hampden Park Stadium, and as you can see from the above screen it wanted to charge me £8.10, whereas the Single from Glasgow Central is £2.50 making a difference of £5.60 for the bus fare. As you can see, the “Departure station” is shown as “Glasgow Airport Xbus”. Which isn’t something I’m familiar with and I doubt any other passengers are either.

Just for fun, I thought I’d see id I could buy a ticket to my home station of Hassocks.

But it didn’t like that, so I assume it only likes stations in Scotland.

Next bus departures

Alongside the mystery TVM is an SPT screen displaying upcoming departures from the bus stops immediately outisde the terminal building, which is helpful. Only First’s 500 is shown as real time, although as the route starts from the airport I expect there’s an assumption all buses will be leaving on time. First’s route 77 and McGills’ 757 just show timetable time – with the latter being a through route between Paisley and Clydebank so could usefully show real time.

But what particularly is noticeable is a lack of stand numbers where the three routes depart from. That would be very helpful together with a clear diagram showing where to go for each one.

And SPT needs to install a timetable for the 757 in the timetable case at the departure point – which is the same one for both directions.

Citylink’s AIR Confusion

I explained in a previous blog Citylink introduced a new hourly route 902 last year connecting Buchanan Street bus station with Edinburgh airport via Bargeddle, Coatbridge, Airdrie and Livingston, taking an hour and 49 minutes. This is in addition to the longer established (since 2013) Air branded direct route that takes just 54 minutes and runs half hourly.

The confusion comes because both routes depart from the same stand in Buchanan Street bus station and all the more so when Citylink allocated an “air” branded coach on the 902, as was the case on the morning I was passing through.

There was a Citylink member of staff loudly calling out to passengers wanting the airport (which most did) not to board that coach as it would take them almost an hour longer, but the profile of the 902 is ironically higher in the bus station than the prestigious Air branded route with posters as you come into the bus station encouraging you to travel to the Designer Outlet in Livingston…

… but also, confusingly, to Edinburgh Airport.

Two colourful timetable leaflets are available which give details of each route, which helps clarify things for those that do their research.

Citylink’s timetables.

And while on Citylink’s timetable leaflets it was heartening to see a fullsome display in the newly located Travel Office in Buchanan Street.

… and a lovely colourful map too.

If only National Express would do something similar.

There’s even a leaflet for the one bus, hourly, tendered SPT bus route 23 between Springhill and Whitburn which Citylink oddly recently won.

As for SPT itself…..it used to have an information counter in the middle of the concourse with leaflet racks that at one time were over brimming with timetables and informtion. Sadly this has now been replaced by a rather unfriendly grey coloured unit with no printed information available at all.

And then I spotted a notice on the former Citylink Travel Office that this is the “first phase of station improvements” with a new “comfortable environment”.

Which led me to do some research and found a news item from SPT dated 2018 explaining how the concourse would be de-cluterred of fake trees, seats and other ‘stuff’ and includes a photograph of how it looked at that time.

That ‘hotel reception’ style information desk looked so inviting and much more wlecoming than the grey cabin that’s replaced it – but hopefully it’s only temporary.

Toilet inconsistencies

The lovely refurbished toilets in the basement of Glasgow Central railway station really are a pleasure to use, being clean and spacious, and notably, free to use…

…whereas inexplicably the toilets in the lovely rebuilt Queen Street station are continuing to charge 50p. Who carries 50p coins around with them these days? I’m sure most users just squeeze by the turnstile arms.

Lovely departure displays

In an example of good practice Network Rail would do well to get those responsible for Euston to copy, the departure board at both Central (above) and Queen Street (below) are lovely and clear to read, can be seen from passengers using seats to wait, and even include advertising to a level that’s not overly intrusive. So it can be done.

Why <Neilston>?

But one thing that puzzled me at Glasgow Central is why the destination of Neilston is shown with a < before and a > after the name…

…wherever it appears, although in the other departures coming up later listing it looks more like a couple of arrows.

Subway ticket offices

Meanwhile on the Glasgow Subway I was impressed with the number of ticket machines…

…and a ticket office which was open and proving just as popular at the stations. This being Hillhead.

… but it seems a shame the system doesn’t operate for longer than just limited shopping hours on Sundays.

Stand on the left is not right

It’s always been the case passengers stand on the right on London Underground escalators and I’ve noticed this is so engrained as a way of using said moving staircases that people do it everywhere, including shopping centres and arenas. Except, to my surprise, the Glasgow Subway…

…where notices tell passengers to “Please Stand on the Left”. Except everyone I saw was standing on the right.

Information overload at Central

Back at Glasgow Central I was impressed by the ScotRail branded Information kiosk under the departure board.

This was a veritable treasure trove of transport and tourist information.

It had lots of leaflets to help the visitor including First’s Airport Express route 500 (far left third row down in photo below)…

… and a map showing where to catch a First Bus bus to some of the tourist hot spots and information on the Glasgow Subway.

I’m not sure how up to date all the maps on the wall might be though.

But it was good to see.

Central’s heritage

You can’t help but marvel at the wonderful architecture and heritage of Glasgow Central railway station and one thing that’s most noticeable is how all the retailers have to forgo their usual brash logos for the simple typeface used in the station as part of the heritage.

Except, as you can see above, some double up, just in case you’re wondering what a Body Shop or Accessorize might be without the benefit of the brand image.

Strathaven success

Regular blog readers may recall I wrote about the exciting new bus route 3C introduced by community group Climate Action Strathaven based in the town, south of Glasgow, back in March last year. The service had been introduced in October 2022. It’s great to see it’s doing so well and now has 12 departures on Mondays to Fridays with 10 on Saturdays.

Priorities

One of the most noticeable things about First’s buses in Glasgow as I travelled around was how dirty they were, notwithstanding the bad weather, other operators weren’t nearly as bad, and I could only conclude something must be wrong with the bus wash at the garage.

And it was also noticeable how DVSA inspectors must be strict on buses having to display legal lettering. Never mind that passengers could hardly see out of the window. As long as they have a postal address they can complain to, then that’s all that matters.

Station link

And finally for this Glasgow Special issue of Seen Around, it was nice to see the bus used on route 398, the Scotrail funded station link between Central and Queen Street (and Buchanan Street) is now a smart looking electric bus.

But, hang on, it’s operated by First Glasgow and looked remarkably clean with no need to highlight the legal lettering.

How odd.

More miscellany from the rest of Britain at the end of next month.

Roger French

Blogging timetable: 06:00 TThS including another extra Superloop blog on Su.

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