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The first phase of a £5million investment by Network Rail in Scotland’s busiest station, has completed with the opening of Avanti West Coast’s new first-class lounge and ticket office. The first phase of the project involved the historic Caledonian Chambers area of the station which is on the east side of the concourse. Caledonian Chambers is a Category B Listed Building designed by Glaswegian architect, James Miller, and was completed in 1903. It was built for the Caledonian Railway Company.

Modifications and improvements were led by Network Rail and included the upgrading of the fire protection for the historic main structure, which required the creation of bespoke as well as standard encasement details for large steel beams by sector specialist, FIREFLY®. Originally opened in 1879, the first phase of this multi-million-pound property project included the creation of Avanti West Coast’s new ticket office and first-class lounge and a brand-new step-free Network Rail station reception on the concourse level. The wider project will see existing tenants relocate, new retail units created, and office accommodation refurbished. Such has been the extent of past adaptations that when the project began last November, the design team was unclear as to the nature of the roof deck’s construction, until demolition of a fast-food restaurant revealed the I-beams up to 900mm deep.

Details originally developed by FIREFLY® parent company in Australia have been adapted to the requirements of the Building Standards (Scotland) and the Building Regulations, enabling the easy to cut and shape non-combustible FB180 batts to infill the web to different sized steel beams. The addition of fireproof mastic and additional layers and the special Ablative Coating complete an encasement which is able to offer 60 minutes or longer integrity and insulation. The installation work within the station, which has remained operational throughout, has been carried out by Glasgow based QualiFire Passive Fire Protection, with SIG being the merchant stockist supplying all the FIREFLY® materials.