Aberdeen-Inverurie double-tracked

Network Rail plans to install 16 miles of double-track between Aberdeen and Inverurie, in what NR Scheme Sponsor Graeme Stewart has described as a “huge civil engineering undertaking”.

NR will need to slew the line’s current single-track because it uses the entire width of the formation. Stewart told a conference in Inverness on January 29 that work would start this summer and concentrate on Aberdeen-Dyce (around six miles), before shifting to Dyce-Inverurie in summer 2019.

It follows last year’s work at the western end of the InvernessAberdeen line, during which track was realigned through Forres and a new station built there, as well as signal boxes and level crossings closed. This has allowed ScotRail to add eight more services, giving effectively an hourly service between Inverness and Elgin.

With High Speed Trains entering service towards the end of 2018, ScotRail Head of Business Development Scott Prentice told the conference: “Rail is going to become a viable public transport option for the first time in decades.”

Transport Scotland Rail Director Bill Reeve said he was looking at just how fast HSTs could run between Inverness and Aberdeen, given the line’s long straight sections.

With HSTs stabled at Elgin, Prentice said that final evening trains could be later and the first morning trains would be more reliable. Basing more diesel trains at Aberdeen and Inverness would make local services more reliable because they would no longer rely on the trains coming from depots further south.