Pic: Glasgow Central Tours
A long-abandoned Victorian railway platform hidden beneath Glasgow Central has been transformed into an underground cinema for Halloween.
The atmospheric space, which dates back to 1896 and has been closed to regular passengers for more than 60 years, is hosting a series of horror and Halloween films as part of a fundraising drive for The King’s Trust.
Visitors to Cinema After Dark are led beneath Scotland’s busiest railway station and through its network of old corridors and tunnels before reaching the disused platform.
The space has been fitted with a cinema screen and decorated with cobwebs, tombstones and Halloween props for six nights of screenings.
Films still to be shown this week include Beetlejuice and Scream on Wednesday 28 October, A Quiet Place and Practical Magic on Thursday, and Creep and A Nightmare on Elm Street on Friday.
Two screenings are being held each night, with tickets priced at £18.
The unusual venue is part of Glasgow Central’s original low-level station.
Steam-powered suburban trains travelled through tunnels beneath Glasgow, with the route connecting Central to stations including Kelvinbridge and Botanic Gardens. The low-level station closed in 1964.
Part of it returned to use when the Argyle Line reopened in 1979, but one section of the old Victorian station was sealed off and remained hidden from passengers behind walls close to today’s platforms 16 and 17.
The abandoned platform has since become one of the highlights of Glasgow Central’s popular behind-the-scenes tours, which take visitors into parts of the station normally inaccessible to passengers.
Plans have previously been discussed to restore the platform to something closer to its Victorian appearance, including relaying railway track and displaying a historic train and carriage. For Halloween, however, the space has taken on a very different role.
The temporary cinema has been created by Network Rail’s Team Track to the Future as part of the Million Makers Challenge, which sees teams raise money for The King’s Trust.
The Glasgow group is running a series of events with the aim of raising around £24,000 for the charity by March 2027.
Cinema After Dark began on 22 October and returns for its final three nights from Wednesday 28 October until Friday 30 October.
The location adds an appropriately eerie backdrop to the screenings – a surviving piece of Victorian Glasgow hidden just metres away from the trains and thousands of passengers passing through Central every day.