Buchanan Street subway station



Buchanan Street subway station is a station on the Glasgow Subway in Scotland. It serves the major shopping thoroughfare of Buchanan Street, and is one of two stations on the Subway (along with St Enoch) that directly serve the city centre. Close to Buchanan Bus Station and providing interchange with Glasgow Queen Street railway station via a travelator, it is the busiest station on the Subway, with 2.54 million passengers in the 12 months ending 31 March 2005.

When built in 1896 the station had a single island platform serving both tracks. An additional side platform was added as part of the 1977-1980 modernisation scheme. A glass wall was added on one side of the island platform to prevent access to the train that is boarding at the side platform. Each platform has a single stairway linking it to the ticket hall, causing congestion during peak hours due to conflicting passenger movements in the same space. The station was closed in 2002 as a result of the Glasgow floods with trains continuing to run without stopping at the station.



Other than St Enoch it is the only station with an underground ticket hall. Originally, the surface access to the station was located on the ground floor of an adjacent building on the east side of the street. This building was demolished in order to insert the moving walkway to Queen Street mainline station and today, a gift shop now stands on the site. In line with the pedestrianisation of Buchanan Street in 1977, two street level entrances were added - located in the middle of the former roadway during the modernisation scheme, with escalators serving the northern entrance and a staircase at the southern end of the ticket hall. The canopies were replaced in 1999 as part of the repaving of Buchanan Street - the northern canopy is constructed entirely of structural glass: all beams and columns, the walls and roof are glass.

Part of carriage 41 from the Subway's pre-1977 rolling stock was also preserved within the station, but has since been removed as part of the 2010s renovation to the network.

Nearby places:
 * George Square
 * Glasgow Royal Concert Hall
 * University of Strathclyde

Past passenger numbers

 * 2011/12: 2.484 million annually