Perth railway station serves the city of Perth, Scotland. It lies on both the GlasgowâÂÂDundee line and the Highland Main Line. It is managed by ScotRail, which provides the majority of services, with London North Eastern Railway and the Caledonian Sleeper. It is sited from , via , and ; and from , via and .
The station was opened as Perth General Station by the Scottish Central Railway (SCR) in 1848, to a design by William Tite. Originally the terminus of the SCR main line from Greenhill Junction, near Glasgow, it soon became a junction of some importance; the arrival of the Dundee and Perth Railway from , following the completion of Tay Viaduct, a bridge across the River Tay, the Edinburgh and Northern Railway (E&NR) from on the Fife coast and the Scottish Midland Junction Railway (SMJR) from within months.
Subsequent construction by the Perth and Dunkeld Railway (P&DR) and the Perth, Almond Valley and Methven Railway added further lines into/out of the city, with the former becoming part of what is now the Highland Main Line to . The SMJR meanwhile would become part of a through route to by 1856, thus giving Perth travellers easy access to all of the major Scottish cities.
All of these lines, apart from the E&NR, were eventually taken over by the Caledonian Railway; although the Highland Railway (which took over the P&DR) and North British Railway (NBR; which absorbed the E&NR) also had access by means of running powers from Stanley Junction and Hilton Junction respectively.
The NBR would subsequently open a more direct route to the Scottish capital than the Caledonian's route, via Stirling and the central lowlands, in 1890; this left the existing Ladybank line at and headed south via Glenfarg to Mawcarse, where it joined the Fife and Kinross Railway's line to Kinross. Trains could then travel via , Dunfermline and the newly opened Forth Rail Bridge to reach Edinburgh.
The Almond Valley line to and was an early post-nationalisation casualty, closing to passengers in October 1951; the Ladybank service followed suit in September 1955. The major losses though came as the result of the Beeching Axe and its aftermath in the mid-to-late 1960s, with the main line to Aberdeen (that is, the ex-SMJR main line to Kinnaber Junction via and ) being closed to passenger traffic on 4 September 1967. Aberdeen services were thereafter routed via Dundee and the former NBR route via . The to section of the Highland Main Line had already been closed two years earlier; several local stations in the area were also shut down around this time.
A further significant, and controversial, closure came on 5 January 1970, when the main line to Edinburgh via Glenfarg, Kinross and was abandoned in favour of the older but less direct line via . The Glenfarg route had been recommended for retention and development in the Beeching Report, but its removal allowed the planned M90 motorway to occupy its former alignment in the Glenfarg area, when the motorway was built a few years later. However, the longer journey via Stirling proved unpopular with Edinburgh travellers and so, in 1975, the old E&NR line to was reopened by British Rail to provide a slightly quicker alternative. This is the route followed by most Edinburgh services today, but the daytime and overnight trains to London (see below) still run via Stirling and Falkirk, as the line via Ladybank and Kirkcaldy is served by the Aberdeen to services.
The station has seven active platforms, but they are split into two distinct sections:
There was once an extensive goods yard at Perth, along with an engine shed and carriage sidings; only a small engineers' depot remains in the greatly downsized yard.
There are two main routes passing through the station: the Glasgow to Dundee and Aberdeen Line, and the Highland Main Line; there is now also a regular service to/from Edinburgh, via the Fife Coast.
Trains are operated by three train operating companies, which provide the general off-peak service in trains per hour/day (tph/tpd):
London North Eastern Railway <br>The Highland Chieftain:
Perth bus station is situated approximately 100 metres north-east along Leonard Street, part of the A989, from the railway station.
Some scenes from the film The Railway Man were shot at Perth station: platform 3 posed as Crewe and platform 5 as Edinburgh Waverley; both were set during the 1960s.
Perth station was nominated for the Carbuncle Award in 2015, which recognises the year's worst planning decision. The award was because a new footbridge had to be built at the southern end of the station which has stair and lift access to all platforms to comply with disability laws. Local newspaper The Courier reported on the news and interviewed Paul Tetlaw from the campaign Transform Scotland. He said:
<blockquote>"It's an off-the-shelf structure that has desecrated the station environment, imposed from London by 'standards bound' Network Rail designers and has no fit with the largely Victorian surroundings. To add insult to injury, it's virtually unused, as the alternatives within the station building are vastly more convenient for the overwhelming majority of passengers. This tacky and inappropriate new structure is thought to have cost in excess of ã1m â money which would have been better spent on opening a new station in nearby Newburgh, which has none, with cash left over for a feasibility study of recreating a direct Perth-Edinburgh link, as advocated by our inter-city express campaign."</blockquote>
In March 2016, Transport Scotland announced a package of timetable improvements for the Scottish rail network that would see:
As of May 2022, these improvements have still not taken place.