Covid putting buffers on some rail services

Rail passengers across Lanarkshire will see changes to Scotrail’s timetables throughout January “due to the continued impact of coronavirus”.

And that includes withdrawing a number of services because of staffing levels.

The rail operators announced 12 different routes across the central belt will be affected because of a spike of Covid-related staff absences that have seen many vital employees testing positive for coronavirus, with others forced to self-isolate and await PCR test results.

Impacted routes include the lines from Glasgow Central to Lanark, East Kilbride and Edinburgh via Shotts, and those from Queen Street to Edinburgh via both Airdrie and Cumbernauld.

The temporary timetable changes – which are detailed online – will be in place on weekdays for four weeks.

Passengers are asked to check which services are affected by the changes and are being reminded that there will be changes to some scheduled stops; and they may be entitled to a ticket refund where services have been cancelled.

Scotrail say that the move aims “to provide customers with a level of certainty about which services are running in the coming weeks”, after staff absences resulted in a number of cancellations in recent weeks.

Operations director David Simpson said: “We’ve been working flat out to run a safe and reliable railway in really difficult and rapidly changing circumstances.

“As we continue to battle against the impact of coronavirus, we want to provide customers with a level of certainty, which is why we are introducing some temporary changes to our timetable until January 28.

“We’ve looked to spread these changes out across the day, where possible, to minimise the impact on our customers, but people should plan ahead and continue to check the train times right up until they arrive at the station.”

Scotrail say they will continue to review staff absence levels “in the event of a further spike in cases”, and advise passengers to check their journeys on the website, app or through social media.