Hillhead subway station is a station on the Glasgow Subway

Glasgow Subway

The Glasgow Subway is an underground metro line in Glasgow, Scotland. Opened on 14 December 1896, it is the third-oldest underground metro system in the world after the London Underground and the Budapest Metro. Formerly a cable railway, the Subway was later electrified, but its twin circular lines...

, serving the Hillhead

Hillhead

Hillhead is a district of Glasgow, Scotland. Situated north of Kelvingrove Park and to the south of the River Kelvin, Hillhead is at the heart of Glasgow's fashionable West End, with Byres Road forming the western border of the area, the other boundaries being Dumbarton Road to the south and the...

 area of Glasgow

Glasgow

Glasgow is the largest city in Scotland and third most populous in the United Kingdom. The city is situated on the River Clyde in the country's west central lowlands...

, Scotland

Scotland

Scotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Occupying the northern third of the island of Great Britain, it shares a border with England to the south and is bounded by the North Sea to the east, the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, and the North Channel and Irish Sea to the...

. The entrance is located on Byres Road

Byres Road

Byres Road is a street located in Hillhead, Glasgow and is the central artery of the city's West End.- Location and history :Byres Rd is a mixed commercial, shopping and upmarket residential area consisting largely of traditional sandstone tenements with retail premises on the ground floor and...

.

This station is the nearest to Glasgow Botanic Gardens

Glasgow Botanic Gardens

Glasgow Botanic Gardens is an Arboretum and public park located in the West End of Glasgow, Scotland. It features several glasshouses, the most notable of which is the Kibble Palace. The gardens were created in 1817, and run by the Royal Botanic Institution of Glasgow , and were intended to supply...

 and the University of Glasgow

University of Glasgow

The University of Glasgow is the fourth-oldest university in the English-speaking world and one of Scotland's four ancient universities. Located in Glasgow, the university was founded in 1451 and is presently one of seventeen British higher education institutions ranked amongst the top 100 of the...

.

The station is one of the busiest on the system with 1.86 million boardings per year. This is largely due to the shopping facilities of Byres Road and proximity to the university, which allows students to travel between campus and the city centre.

History

During the modernisation of the underground system between 1977 and 1980, Hillhead subway station went through major rebuilding. Previously the station had a single island platform

Island platform

An island platform is a station layout arrangement where a single platform is positioned between two tracks within a railway station, tram stop or transitway interchange...

 serving both tracks; the station was rebuilt with a much more spacious ticket office, escalators and an additional side platform

Side platform

A Side platform is a platform positioned to the side of a pair of tracks at a railway station, a tram stop or a transitway. A pair of side platforms are often provided on a dual track line with a single side platform being sufficient for a single track line...

.

Current layout

There are three automated ticket machines located in the entrance way, which leads up to an information centre where passengers may buy tickets of longer duration and get more information on transport in Glasgow. Then there is the ticket office which is manned by one staff member at a time. There are six turnstiles into which a ticket must be entered in order to pass. There are three for entering and three for exiting the subway.

Two escalators and one staircase provide access to the two platforms, and maps are present to guide passengers to the correct platform for their destination.

The platform features, on one side, a perspex barrier with a handrail which was built for safety reasons. This type of barrier can be seen in some but not all other subway stations in Glasgow and it is unclear whether a specific event led to their introduction.

Future developments

Hillhead will be the first station to be upgraded as part of SPT's plan to modernise the Subway at a cost of £1.5million. Under the plans, the escalators will be replaced and the interior design will be refreshed. Lighting and facilities for disabled people will also be improved. In addition, SPT have commissioned artist Alasdair Gray to create a piece of public artwork for the station. It is expected that the improvement work will be completed by 2012.