Waverley Steps reopened this morning, well partly at any rate. The section from the station up to the entrance to Princes Mall’s food court is in use, the rest should be fully accessible from Monday (30 January). Apparently the early opening of the lower section is to permit the dismantling of the temporary stairs that have been providing access/egress via the Mall’s food court for the past year.
Waverley Steps and Escalators now open
It’s all looking very good. The escalators are on the Mall side, the static stairs against the hotel. The glazed roof is supported on metal supports that rise from the centre of the combined stairway. The roof doesn’t actually abut directly to the hotel, there is a gap and no doubt there will continue to be interesting draughts on windy days. At Princes Street level there is an elegant new glass entrance with Edinburgh Waverley proudly signed in metal lettering above.
Network Rail are proudly trumpeting that this work has been completed on time, though some will point out that the original plans had intended this to be complete some five years past. Those plans were objected to by the Balmoral Hotel (nee The North British Railway Hotel). Indeed the lifts that were to be installed for the benefit of those who cannot manage the stairs are still to come, the hotel wanted them sited away from their property.
It’s interesting that these modernising works should have been delayed for years due to the concerns of the new owners of the former railway hotel. At one time there was a lift from the station concourse, which conveyed passengers, by way of a covered walkway above station roof level, directly to the hotel. That link seems to have fallen into disuse about the time the hotel was sold off by the nationalised railways. Until recently it was still possible to identify the walkway when looking down on the station from the vantage of South Bridge; when I went to look today I noted that it was covered over and appears to be in the process of being dismantled as part of the roof upgrade works.
It is perhaps a shame that the hotel has turned its back on the railway which built it (if I was pedantic I’d point out that it was built that way). But these days one supposes that guests of such a high class establishment are more likely to arrive via the airport and want to be dropped directly in front of the hotel by taxi. At least the two are coexisting side-by-side even if the hotel doesn’t want any physical contact with its railway neighbour.