Aberdeen Railway Station

Aberdeen railway station is a railway station in Aberdeen, Scotland, UK.

History

The station currently standing was built as Aberdeen Joint Station between 1913-16, replacing an 1867 structure of the same name, on the same site. The station and the new Denburn Valley Line enabled the main line from the south and the commuter line from Deeside to connect with the line from the north. The lines from south had previously terminated at the adjacent Aberdeen Guild Street. Even this had not been Aberdeen's first railway station, that distinction belonging to a previous terminus a short way south at Ferryhill. After the construction of the Joint Station, Guild Street Station became a goods station. Some of its tracks remain, but the vast majority of the site was cleared in 2005. Prior to the construction of the Joint Station, lines from the north had terminated at Aberdeen Waterloo, a short but inconvenient distance along the edge of the harbour. This too became a goods station after the construction of the Joint Station. There is no longer a station at the site, but a goods service runs approximately weekly to industrial operations there. The Waterloo tracks join the north-south connecting Denburn Valley Line in the Kittybrewster area of the city, where the very first terminus of the lines from the north had briefly been, before extension and the building of the Waterloo Station. As far north as Inverurie, these follow the route of the Aberdeenshire Canal which had been purchased and filled in by the Great North of Scotland Railway. As a result of the grouping of railway companies caused by the Railways Act 1921, Aberdeen came under the auspices of the London and North Eastern Railway. It later became part of British Rail and is now managed by First ScotRail. It was announced in 2006, that as part of the Union Square retail project, the railway and bus stations would undergo major refurbishment, including new ticket gates, a new ticket office and improved parking. The automatic ticket gates have since been installed.

Station services

Medium-term parking is available but is relatively expensive and it is often difficult to find a space. There are a small number of free spaces which offer parking for 20 minutes only. There is a taxi stance immediately outside of the station building, and the regional and national bus station is across the car park.

There is a "Travel Office" for information and ticket purchasing, as well as automatic ticket machines outside this office. The office often closes well before the last trains have departed. There is a branch of bookshop/confectioner W H Smith and a pub and café on the concourse. The cafe mainly serves cold food such as sandwiches. Like the ticket office, the shop and café do not open in the late evening.

There are toilets accessible from the concourse, in addition to toilet facilities in the café (free to customers) and on most trains (free to passengers).

This content is taken from Wikipedia and is re-used according to the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License.