Elgin railway station

Elgin railway station is a railway station serving the town of Elgin, Moray in Scotland. The station is managed and served by ScotRail and is on the Aberdeen to Inverness Line, between Keith and Forres, measured 12 mi from Forres.

History
The first station in Elgin was opened by the Great North of Scotland Railway (GNSR) on 10 August 1852 by the Morayshire Railway. The second owned by the Highland Railway was opened on 25 March 1858 by the Inverness and Aberdeen Junction Railway and later known as Elgin West. The GNSR lines to Lossiemouth and Craigellachie (where it joined the Strathspey Railway (GNoSR)) were subsequently joined by the GNSR Morayshire Coast line in 1886–7.

The GNSR company prepared plans in the mid-1890s for a new station building which was intended to be a joint station with the Highland Railway. Mr P.M. Barnett, engineer-in-chief of the GNSR submitted a plan which proposed a diversion from the Highland company mainline and a new double line, with platforms on all, which would have resulted in the Highland company's existing lines becoming joint. GNSR trains from Craigellachie and Lossiemouth could run into different lines, and the Highland company's trains would stop opposite, allowing easy exchange between carriages. Despite a meeting between Barnett and Mr Roberts, the Highland company engineer, an agreement could not be reached. The GNSR proceeded with plans of their own in 1898 on their existing site, with a new building with a front elevation of 130 ft in length. Construction started in 1899 and the new station was modified during construction. It resulted in a frontage of 250 ft. The new building opened on Saturday 30 August 1902. The upper part of the building provided accommodation to the manager's apartments, clerks and tea-rooms, and the western portion was the station masters's house. The ground floor comprised a large waiting-room with a circular glass roof, about 70 ft in length and 30 ft in width. All four platforms had an iron and glass canopy with the ironwork painted in pale blue colour. The clerk's office contained a row of telegraph instruments, and telephones communicating with the locomotive department, the signal cabins and with the Highland station. A pneumatic tube system conveying messages to and from other offices was also installed. The architect was the company engineer, P.M. Barnett.

All three of the GNSR routes were closed in the 1960s as a result of the Beeching Axe, with the Lossiemouth branch the first to go in April 1964 and the other two routes following in May 1968.

Both stations were located about one mile to the south of Elgin town centre, which made them inconvenient for local journeys, e.g. to Lossiemouth, and bus services soon eliminated much of the local passenger traffic - passengers would generally only use the train service if they were connecting to long-distance trains. The stations were less than 500 metres apart and linked by a footpath.

The present station, formerly the West (ex-Highland) station, was retained in 1968-69 was rebuilt and the platforms were raised. The new passenger facilities proved inadequate and it was rebuilt again in a modern style by British Rail in 1990 at a cost of £400,000.

The GNSR station (known as Elgin East) was closed with the end of services on the coast and Craigellachie lines on 6 May 1968. The GNSR station building is still used as office accommodation and stands on the site of the original Morayshire Railway station. A sizeable goods yard is still in operation on this site.

Recent infrastructure improvements
As well as the aforementioned timetable improvements, Transport Scotland agreed in 2014 to fund a £170 million infrastructure upgrade project for the line. This included signalling improvements, a longer loop and platform extensions for Elgin.

A 10-day engineering blockade between Keith and Inverness saw the signalling and track improvements both here and in Forres completed, with the Elgin loop extended by 400 m and new colour light signals commissioned under the control of the signalling centre at Inverness. The level crossing was also converted to remote operation by CCTV from the location. The line reopened as scheduled on 17 October 2017.

Facilities
The station has a ticket office, ticket machine and accessible toilets on platform 1, adjacent to which is the car park and bike racks. Both platforms are equipped with waiting shelters, benches and help points, and are linked by a footbridge and lifts.

Passenger services
The statistics cover twelve month periods that start in April.

Services
As of May 2022, the basic service at the station is (roughly) two-hourly in each direction, west to Inverness and east to Aberdeen, though a number of trains also start/terminate here from the Inverness direction to give an approximately hourly service westbound. The first eastbound train each weekday continues through to Dundee and Edinburgh Waverley, with another service terminating at Stonehaven in the evening. On Sundays, there are five trains each way to the main termini (one of which runs through to Glasgow Queen Street via Aberdeen) and two from Glasgow via Inverness that terminate here.