£500k grant offered to restore fire-ravaged Troon railway station

A restoration group has offered £500,000 to help repair the fire-damaged Troon railway station.

The Railway Heritage Trust said it wanted to help salvage the Victorian structure following Saturday's devastating fire.

It opened in 1892, designed by architect James Miller, whose work includes other west coast stations as well as Glasgow Royal Infirmary.

ScotRail said the cause of the fire was not yet known.

• Trains cancelled as firefighters tackle station blaze

On Saturday fire crews were met with a well-developed fire on Barassie Street in the South Ayrshire town in the station ticket office, which had spread to the roof space.

ScotRail said much of the building on platform one was destroyed and an overhead power cable was damaged.

A nearby hairdressers and café were also gutted by the fire, and part of the building collapsed. There were no reported injuries.

Smoke and flames were rising from the building

The Railway Heritage Trust said its offer to Network Rail of a £500,000 grant towards restoration would only cover a fraction of the cost.

Its director, Andy Savage, described the fire as "a real devastation".

"Half a million pounds is going to contribute - it's not going to pay the whole bill or anything like it," he said.

Mr Savage told the BBC: "Whether it's totally destroyed is another matter, because clearly the timber building is totally destroyed.

"The key thing with this is whether the iron and steel structure that supports and forms the roof between the two platforms has survived and is salvageable because if that is salvageable then there are options.

Ballater fire

Mr Savage drew comparisons with a fire which destroyed the Old Royal Station at Ballater in 2015.

"The only thing that gives me hope is that six years ago I was looking at very similar images of Ballater, which was also destroyed by fire.

"Then at the end of last month I was at Ballater unveiling a plaque... to celebrate the total restoration of the station.

"Whether that can be done at Troon is another matter - but it can be done."

He said it cost £4.5m and six years to restore Ballater train station in Aberdeenshire after the fire.

Mr Savage continued: "I'm sure Troon will be more expensive than that, simply because it's next to an operational railway.... so the complexities are far more.

"But it depends on the damage and what has to be done. It could be relatively easy; it could be much more complex.

"We don't know what the damage is at this stage."

Troon station, designed by James Miller, opened in 1892

The blaze brought major disruption to the seaside town on Saturday, which was busier than usual due to the sunny weather as people flocked to the beach.

Several hundred passengers' journeys were affected on Saturday, and were put on buses to Kilwinning station from where they travelled to Glasgow.

ScotRail urged passengers not to travel to Ayr by train on Sunday.

It said there would be no services from Glasgow Central to Ayr past Kilwinning until at least Monday.

The train operator said a contingency timetable would be put in place, which would see services terminate at, and start back from, Kilwinning, with two services an hour between Glasgow and the Ayrshire town.