More than £6.5 million is needed to restore Dumbarton Central station to its former glory.
The figure emerged as a result of work by conservationists intent on preserving the transport hub.
A report by the charitable Dumbarton Stations Improvement Trust, says the ailing facade needs work to prevent further damage to any of the A-listed structures.
Members of the DSIT carried out an inspection of the Victorian station, including disused sectors - in a bid to assess its condition ahead of the compilation of a blueprint designed to preserve and restore the site.
They examined the now-neglected former booking office facility at the station’s abandoned Church Street entrance, alongside now defunct rooms used mainly for storage.
The group also assessed platform facilities, waiting rooms and the station’s entrances, for the survey of the site - built in 1850.
Conservation architect Lesley Kerr was drafted in by the group - six trustees led by Dumbarton man Dave Harvie - and joins consultants who helped create the Conservation Management Plan.
Identified works the group hope to see carried out as part of the plan, include structural work to platform canopies, windows and doors, masonry repairs to exteriors including the former entrance and a plan to transform a siding adjacent to a now disused platform, into greenspace featuring garden seating.
Stairwells and the ageing former booking office will also face attention.
Street approaches have also been earmarked for work, including dingy pedestrian underpasses linking the station with Church Street and Glasgow Road.
The current station entrances - from Bankend Road and Station Road - are also deemed unsuitable for modern demands and face attention under the plan.
Originally created for postal vehicles to access the station to collect mail from trains, ramped entrances currently in use are described as “steep by today’s standards”.
Surrounding environment at the Station Road side particularly - which features pedestrian barriers across the entrance and parked cars -, is also described as being one to: “diminish the sense of arrival”, while the Church Street entrance is described as: “a hostile environment exacerbated by poor lighting and nesting birds.”
The station, which was listed in 1984, is one of only 13 A-listed surviving and operational railway stations in Scotland.It has fallen prey over the years to unsympathetic restoration, including the placing of structures for electrification of the line and the creation of an electronic “toilet pod” in one of the Victorian waiting rooms.
Described as being: “architecturally distinctive with its robust Neo-Gothic styling and dominant red sandstone and brick detailing”, they were considered luxurious at the time of their construction. Few would consider them to be so today. Joinery work including the “panelling of the 1890s ground floor booking hall”, are deeemed as “architecturally important”.
The creation of lifts to convey passengers to the platform areas are also mooted in the plan.
Trustees detail their hopes that Network Rail, who manage station facilities, will find cash within their next budget cycle - which covers 2019 to 2024 - to contribute to safeguarding ailing station structures.
A consultation on the preservation of the station’s cultural and historic value, held earlier this year, is said to have demonstrated: “the considerable value and importance that local residents and station users place upon Dumbarton Central”, and consolidated the “strong feeling that the station has been neglected”.
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