WHEN Central Station’s cavernous underground tunnels were opened up for the first time to the public, 100 ticketed places were offered.

That first tour attracted 83,000 applications.

A few years on and it's consistently rated number one of Glasgow’s ‘must dos’ on Trip Advisor. Most of the credit for that must go to Paul Lyons, historian for Network Rail.

It’s more than a job for Paul, who has worked on the railways “for at least 100 years” and is the former duty manager of London Euston and Kings Cross.

He is passionate about the need to preserve the history of Scotland’s busiest railway station and more importantly the stories of the people who have travelled through it.

Tall and lean with a flowing, grey beard like a station master of the Victoria age, he has a commanding presence and a wicked sense of humour. Moving stories of the hardships faced by Glasgow’s people are interspersed with comedy and the rumble of trains above.

“Glasgow Central is central to Glasgow,” he says. “It’s not just about train tracks and timetables.”

“Scotland has a great oral tradition and these are the stories of our city. If we aren’t careful those stories will disappear forever.”

Central Station was opened by the Caledonian Railway on August 1 1879. It was built over the site of Glasgow’s ‘forgotten’ Grahamston village, whose central street (Alston Street) was demolished to make way for the station platform. The men involved in its construction were more afraid of the ghost of a Victorian lady than the giant rats that came up from the Clyde.

The low-level platforms were originally a separate station, and were added to serve the underground Glasgow Central Railway. Between 1901 and 1905 the original station was rebuilt and extended over the top of Argyle Street with thirteen platforms added.

Historical gems gathered from elderly train passengers he met while working in customer service at Central are weaved into the tours.

“There was a 96-year-old on the tour whose first job was to feed the horses used to pull Royal Mail trucks,” he says, pointing out circular, iron hoops where they were tethered.

“About three or four months ago I met an elderly man whose parents had met upstairs. It’s all about the interaction you get with the older people on the tour.”

It’s not a tour where you are bombarded visually with with but it’s rich in history and atmosphere and never feels scripted.

He politely requests we don’t put in print two very funny stories about an apparent ghostly sighting and a Glasgow fish and chip shop.

HOWEVER, there are many moments of poignancy through the hour-long tour. We move to an area that was used as a temporary morgue during the first world war where women were forced to walk through rows of bodies to identify their loved ones.

Men who survived came off the trains at Platform One.

“Central in those days was filthy, the place was in semi-darkness. Platform One would be ablaze with candles. The women of the city were kneeling down. As the trains came to a standstill, servicemen were coming out. Most of them were from Highland regiments. They were infested with lice. They were using the candles to try to burn the lice off the clothes.”

After the Highland clearances there was a massive influx of immigrants to Glasgow, who couldn’t afford to travel overseas. When a cholera outbreak claimed 3000 lives, the immigrants got the blame.

Paul says: “Years after the Irish arrived, there was another Cholera outbreak and the Irish got blamed for that.

“It was Irish and Highland navvies who built Central Station.

“A lot of these men became the first porters.They would drop the drunks out in wheelbarrows.

“The Highlanders would congregate outside that station for a break and that’s how it got the name The Hielanman’s Umbrella.”

Paul has uncovered many items of historical importance buried behind sealed up cupboards and wall. A wheelchair dated from 1917, a writing bureau and a Bakelite phone and a newspaper dating from the 1940s.

“It never ceases to amaze me what I find,” he says.

Earlier in the tour we are led to an area which once housed Royal Mail’s rail depot. Like many rail workers of a certain age, he bristles at the mention of the Great Train Robbery, when £2.6 million was taken from a heading from Glasgow to London in the early hours of Thursday, 8 August 1963.

The driver of the train, Jack Mills, was savagely beaten over the head with an iron bar. Mills’ injuries were severe enough to end his career and he died several years later.

His widow received just over £200 compensation, while Ronnie Biggs raked in thousands in a tabloid deal.

Paul, who is from Balloch, leads us down to the final destination of the tour, a darkly atmospheric area which once housed a Victorian platform.

An area with poor visibility where Glasgow’s baddies would cut the straps off women’s handbags and scarper.

Plans are now underway to transform the former platform with vintage tracks, a steam engine, a newspaper stall and shop front. There will be a bit of clean-up of the station walls but the soot and stoor of the past will remain.

Paul says: “I would be doing these people a disservice if we airbrush it all out.”