Barrhill railway station

Barrhill railway station is a railway station serving the village of Barrhill, South Ayrshire, Scotland. The station is managed by ScotRail and is on the Ayr to Stranraer section of the Glasgow South Western Line, 74 mi south of Glasgow Central. A passing loop 19 chain long is located here on what is otherwise a single track route.

History
The station was opened by the Girvan and Portpatrick Junction Railway on 5 October 1877. The station was briefly closed between 7 February 1882 and 16 February 1882, and between 12 April 1886 and 14 June 1886.

The station features in the novel Five Red Herrings by Dorothy L Sayers, first published in 1931.

The line that runs through Barrhill station was temporarily closed between August and November 2018 due to the closures of platform 3 and 4 of Ayr station. This was caused by the adjacent hotel building that was found to be structurally unsound, which was then subsequently secured and services then resumed.

Pre-COVID
On Monday to Saturday, there is a regular two-hourly service to both Kilmarnock and Stranraer with a total of eight trains per day in each direction (with a four-hour gap in between trains in the Stranraer direction in the evening), two trains extend beyond Kilmarnock to Glasgow Central and four run the other way.

On Sundays, there are five trains per day each way Stranraer and Ayr.

Services 2023
Due to the fire at Ayr Station Hotel, There is an emergency timetable operating from the station and as a result there is only 2 trains each way with trains to Girvan departing at 0739 and 1340 Monday to Saturdays and 1116 and 1515 on Sundays, There is also only 2 train southbound to Stranraer departing at 1223 and 1818 All other services are cancelled and replaced by buses to Girvan and Ayr. It is currently unknown when a normal service will resume due to the damage of the station hotel

7 days a week, There is 5 trains per day to Stranraer and 5 trains per day to Ayr which run to an irregular 2 to 4 hour frequency (2 of which extend to Kilmarnock with 1 extending onwards to Glasgow). The Sunday service is broadly the same except all trains terminate at Ayr heading northbound and are every 2 hours instead. Following the fire at the Station Hotel at Ayr Station, The normal service is currently suspended and its unknown when the normal service will resume.

Signalling
The small signal box that houses the lever frame operating the loop was installed in 1935 after its predecessor was destroyed by fire - it was originally situated further down the line at Portpatrick but dismantled and moved to Barrhill after becoming redundant at its original location. The box only houses the frame however - the tablet instruments and block bells are in the main station building, which allows one railman to act as both stationmaster and signaller.