IMAGES TAKEN NEAR TO
Old Brewery Lane, ALLOA, FK10 3GL

Looking east.

The station clock is in position, though in good railway fashion it is already running about twenty minutes late! The station and its new passenger service are to be ceremonially opened in less than three weeks and finishing touches are still be made to the building on the platform. Most signage has not yet been erected, though there is a strange red one by the exit that, if one turns one's head on one side, reads "Alloa Station". Is this intended for those who come back from a hard night's clubbing in Stirling on the last train and fall flat on the platform as they descend from the train?

Opened in 2008 by Network Rail as the terminus of the branch from Stirling, replacing an earlier station some 300m behind the camera position which had closed to passengers in 1968. View east towards the 10 year-old passenger terminus, shortly after the line had been electrified. The vegetation has also matured since Image was taken.

In two months from the taking of this photograph this newly re-laid railway and station will open for the first public passenger trains to Alloa for nearly forty years and numerous men in orange high-visibility jackets have been checking that the associated new signalling arrangements will work satisfactorily. The track at the platform ends at a buffer stop and the track to the left is a separate goods line continuing through to Kincardine, which will enable coal imported via Hunterston on the Firth of Clyde to be carried to Longannet power station, Fife, by a more direct route than going round by the Forth Bridge. The flats on the left, known by their builder as "The Junction", had only recently been completed and the Asda supermarket, on the site of a former Skol lager brewery, was also brand-new.

Opened in 2008 by Network Rail as the terminus of the branch from Stirling, replacing an earlier station some 300m behind the camera position which had closed to passengers in 1968. View east towards the brand new passenger terminus. For an updated view following electrification in 2018, see Image At the time this image was taken, the line continued eastwards for freight trains only, via Clackmannan and Longannet power station to Dunfermline.

By Andy Scott. Titled 'I Can See For miles', this sculpture by Andy Scott emulates Alloa’s regeneration, looking forward to another exciting generation in Alloa’s history. The sculpture features two figures, an adult wearing a flat working man’s cap and a youngster depicting potential through the next generation of workers, business and opportunity for this young child in the former industrial town. Historically, Alloa was an industrial powerhouse, and through Alloa’s harbour coal, beer, glass and textiles were exported throughout the world (from Alloa & Clackmannanshire, The Andy Scott Trail leaflet [https://www.clacks.gov.uk/document/3588.pdf]).

Forty years ago and earlier this photograph could have been taken from the booking office of Alloa railway station. In fact the camera was balanced on the parapet of Erskine Street bridge, which is now closed to vehicles but retained for pedestrians. Until October 1968 (and for a decade or so afterwards until their total demolition) the platforms of Alloa railway station passed under the bridge and passengers would have descended stairs from the booking office to the platform. The present railway station at Alloa, opened in May 2008, is just beyond the bridge in the distance on the newly re-laid line from Stirling to Kincardine. The green dip to the left, with a partly flooded footpath disappearing round it, was the course of the Devon Valley railway to Dollar and Kinross, which lost its passenger services in 1964. The bridge and embankment with steps coming down from it, mark the course of the Earl of Mar's waggonway, opened in 1766 and used until 1924, from coal pits in the Sauchie area down to Alloa Harbour. Today its route through the town is maintained as a footpath. Forty years ago as well, the site of the flat-roofed apartments behind the brown fence was occupied by a locomotive depot and where the Asda supermarket is now was a lager brewery.

ScotRail Turbostar 170470 rests at Alloa station before working the 1416 service to Glasgow Queen Street. All services are formed by class 385 EMUs, but for some reason, this 170 found itself working the Alloa trip.