Scotrail’s new electric trains to finally enter service ten months late
The first of Scotrail’s new Hitachi trains is to finally enter service on Tuesday – ten months late.
The Japanese-built class 385 electric train is due to make its passenger debut on the main Edinburgh-glasgow line on the 5:55am from Edinburgh Waverley to Glasgow Queen Street.
The seven-carriage train will operate several other services on the route during the day, but is the only one of the 70-strong fleet yet available.
Scotrail chiefs had originally planned to start running the trains late at night and at weekends to minimise disruption from any breakdowns.
However, they are understood to be confident after months of testing that they are reliable enough to run on Scotland’s busiest line at its busiest.
The trains should have started running on Scotrail’s flagship route last September but were initially held up by delays in building the trains and completing electrification of the line.
Then they had to have new flat windscreens fitted after drivers said they could not see signals clearly through the original curved screens.
The trains will enable journey times to be cut by ten minutes to 42 minutes.
They will also ease overcrowding by running up to eight carriages compared to the maximum six of the diesel trains they will replace.
The trains will also run on routes across the Central Belt.