25 Places with two stations: 15 Helensburgh

Saturday 26th July 2025

Welcome to another blog featuring the fourth station pair to be found within a town or city on precisely the same line of longitude but on completely different rail lines (see Canterbury, Yeovil and New Mills, previously featured in this fortnightly series)

But, as you can see from the above map, the ‘separate lines’ serving Helensburgh Central and Helensburgh Upper only diverge from each other just over a mile east, towards Glasgow, by Craigendoran station on the eastern edge of Helensburgh, which although not clear on the map, is only on the line to and from Central.

As its name implies Helensburgh Central (above photo) is located in the heart of the town of Helensburgh on the north bank of the River Clyde while Helensburgh Upper (below photo), is on the famous West Highland Line.

Although the stations are just two thirds of a mile apart, the above photos demonstrate they couldn’t be more different offering the starkest contrasting station pair yet covered in this fortnightly series.

Helensburgh Central obviously sees many more passengers than Helensburgh Upper; indeed about 50 times as many with 626,000 using the station to enter and exit in 2023/24 while Upper saw just 11,700.

But that must be an estimate as, just like at Falkirk, passengers can buy a ticket interchangeable to either station from Glasgow, so the Office of Rail and Road must make some big assumptions to determine those figures.

Obviously the number of train departures is also dramatically different with Central having a half hourly service to Glasgow serving Queen Street Lower Level with trains continuing via Airdre and Bathgate to Edinburgh Waverley which together with trains from Balloch makes for a busy commuter route while Upper sees just a few trains each day on the West Highland Line to Oban, Fort William and Mallaig but does also see the Caledonian Sleeper in the early morning and evening on its way from Euston to Fort William – quite a thing for a small Scottish town the size of Hellensburgh (population 15,610) to have a direct train to London.

All told, Central has 36 train departures and 35 arrivals on weekdays while Upper has six northbound and seven southbound although three of the former split at Crianlarich to either Oban or Mallaig and of course the Sleeper calls at 06:33 northbound and 23:23 southbound.

Helensburgh Central came first, in 1858 thanks to the Glasgow, Dumbarton and Helensburgh Railway with Helensburgh Upper courtesy of the West Highland Railway in 1894.

In its heyday Central probably needed the three terminating platforms it still has now, but with the current half hourly service and trains arriving and departing with a 10 minute or so turn around there’s really only a need for one platform. Indeed the line into the station is only a single track line from the junction where the line heads off to Helensburgh Upper and Crianlarich. The arrangement reminded me a bit of Hertford East.

A large section of the platforms are under a glass roof as is the eastern end…

… and the concourse area making for a very light ambience, especially on a sunny day as when I visited back in May.

On the concourse there’s a rather nice independently run café (thanks Kath) as well as toilets (for ScotRail passengers)…

… and the main exit takes you through to…

… the ticket office with its multiple windows, but I suspect only one is ever in use.

There’s strong evidence the station once had four platforms…

…or perhaps an area for goods trains on the southern side of the station which is now given over to car parking, and at very cheap rates too.

There’s a ticket machine for when the ticket office is closed…

… and a number of redundant looking offices but with a rather nice sign post pointing the way to various highlights in the town.

It’s nice to see a station now clearly under utilised from its past glory but obviously looked after and kept in good condition.

It’s about a fifteen minute walk up the hill to Helensburgh Upper…

… where the station entrance…

… is characterised by a long covered ramp down…

…to the platform on the single track line.

As you can see it’s a delightful setting among the very tall trees and the platform itself has two sprinklings of plants in two colourful flower beds by a bench seat…

… either side of the shelter, also with a bench/perch seat.

This makes for a pleasant atmosphere to wait for the train and ponder what the cabinets…

… and lockers contain at the eastern end of the platform.

As you can see there’s a dot matrix display – very helpful as mobile phone signals are not good in this area – and there’s a helpful route diagram on display.

Despite the main A818 road, Sinclair Street, passing over the eastern end of the platform…

… it’s a very quiet spot to wait and ponder the lovely journey that awaits you as the train can be seen coming from quite a distance.

Delightful.

A lovely pair of stations.

Roger French

Did you catch the 14 previous blogs in this series? 1: Hertford; 2: Canterbury. 3: Wigan, 4 Dorchester, 5 Windsor, 6 Wakefield, 7 Reddish, 8 Yeovil, 9 Newark-on-Trent, 10 New Mills, 11 Tyndrum, 12 St Albans, 13 Falkirk, 14 Catford.

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