NEWTON (SOUTH LANARKSHIRE) RAILWAY STATION

'Newton railway station' is a railway station located between the town of Halfway and the village of Newton in South Lanarkshire, near the larger town of Cambuslang in Scotland. The station is managed by First ScotRail on the Argyle and Cathcart Circle Lines.

Contents

History

Station information

Stages of electrification and subsequent layout changes

Services

2006/07

References

External links

History

The original Newton station was opened as part of the Clydesdale Junction Railway on 1 June 1849. The station also served the Hamilton Branch of the Caledonian Railway. It closed on 19 December 1873 and a new station was opened 605m due west on the same day. The station later served trains to and from the Glasgow Central Railway and the Lanarkshire and Ayrshire Railway.

Station information

Newton station forms part of the Argyle Line 10 km (6¼ miles) south east of Glasgow Central (Low Level) and is also a terminus for the Cathcart Circle (Newton branch) 16 km (10 miles) south east of Glasgow Central (High Level).
Newton is also the location of a junction between the West Coast Main Line and the Argyle/Cathcart Circle routes; it is at this point Argyle Line services leave the WCML en route to the Hamilton Circle. This junction was the location of the Newton rail crash in 1991 when 4 people were killed and 22 injured.
Just a few hundred yards west of Newton station the line from Kirkhill comes along side the WCML tracks from Cambuslang, and a single lead junction allows trains from the Cambuslang direction to enter the station. To the east of the station, links from the platforms join the fast lines as they bear north east towards Uddingston. Services taking this route WCML & ECML (GNER/Virgin), Bellshill line services and Edinburgh Waverley via Shotts. The platform (slow) lines bear south east towards Blantyre. Services heading this way include those to Larkhall and Coatbridge Central.

Stages of electrification and subsequent layout changes

The slow line platforms were electrified as part of the 1962 Cathcart Circle scheme through to Motherwell via the West Coast Main Line. The fast line platforms were taken out of use at this time.
The next electrification work was part of the 1974 West Coast Main Line electrication project when the Hamilton Circle was electrified. This layout was retained when the Argyle Line opened on 1979.
Following the closure of adjacent (to the south) steel works and East Coast Main Line electrification, the junction layout was revised in 1990/1991 to allow Fast Line trains to pass through at higher speeds. It was as a result of these revisions that single lead junctions from the Kirkhill and Cambuslang directions were installed, that contributed to the Newton rail crash. After several months a double line link was reinstated from Kirkhill.

Services

2006/07

On the Argyle Line, there are two Motherwell via Hamilton Central-bound services an hour: one an hour terminating in Motherwell and one continuing to Lanark. There are two per hour towards Glasgow Central and Milngavie (Balloch on Sundays).
On the Cathcart Circle, a half-hourly service operates from Newton every day. One journey per hour goes via Mount Florida and the other via Pollokshaws.

References

★ Butt, R.V.J. (1995). ''The Directory of Railway Stations''. Sparkford: Patrick Stephens Ltd. ISBN 1-85260-508-1.

External links