IBM railway station (formerly known as IBM Halt) is a disused railway station on the Inverclyde Line, west of Wemyss Bay Junction at Port Glasgow, and approximately west of Glasgow Central. It is one of a number of railway stations which remain open but have no passenger services.
History Clinging to the south slope of Spango Valley on the Glasgow-Wemyss Bay line, IBM Halt was opened on 9 May 1978IBM Halt opened The Railway Magazine issue 927 July 1978 page 357 by British Rail to serve what was at that time a thriving IBM computer manufacturing plant, employing over 4,000 people. Originally, the stop was unadvertised and only peak-time services stopped there, but subsequently the station was publicly advertised from May 1986.
The station was located within the confines of a large facility formerly owned entirely by IBM, a major employer for the town of Greenock until the plant closed. By June 2009, half of the buildings had been demolished, and the site was re-branded as Valley Park.
Until 16 May 1983, it was the only station to have the suffix "halt". By 1974, the term "halt" had been removed from British Rail timetables, station signs, and other official documents. The return of the term came in 1978 for the opening of IBM Halt, and in the renaming of the two Cornish stations in 2008.
Service suspension The station had its service suspended with effect from 9 December 2018, with ScotRail citing low patronage and anti-social behaviour on the nearby derelict IBM site. Services may be re-introduced once the site is rebuilt, although there is no fixed timeline for that to happen.Finally a platform for train puns: IBM Halt station derailed The Register 19 November 2018 A planning application for a mixed-use development on the IBM site, which would involve the reopening of the station, was submitted in February 2020.
Passenger volume Due to its location away from major housing areas and other transport links, the station was used primarily by people employed in Valley Park, but access to the station by the general public was possible. Despite an hourly service, the annual patronage declined dramatically, from well over 100,000, to about 500 when the services were suspended. +Passenger Volume at IBM2002–032004–052005–062006–072007–082008–092009–102010–112011–122012–132013–142014–152015–162016–172017–182018–19Entries and exits94,462128,741117,35993,95493,519153,358145,664136,414127,828122,59071,12847,37622,0166,032768506 The statistics cover twelve month periods that start in April.
Services Prior to the suspension of services, the station was served by an hourly service on the Inverclyde Line between Glasgow Central and .
References
Bibliography
External links
A YouTube video from 2025 about the station