Rail misery will go on until April
Glasgow to Edinburgh service faces SEVEN months of chaos
RAIL passengers on Scotland’s busiest route face months of misery following a series of delays to a major engineering project.
Just days after services on the Edinburgh to Glasgow route returned to normal after a 20-week tunnel closure, travellers were yesterday told there will now be more chaos – for the next seven months.
From September 4, trains from Glasgow Queen Street high level to the capital will terminate at Polmont, near Falkirk, after 8.30pm every night, apart from Fridays and Saturdays. Passengers
‘We understand the inconvenience’
will then have to travel by bus on the remainder of the route, adding around an hour to journey times.
That will cause major problems for people stuck late at work or travellers going to evening events in either city. There will also be no trains on the key route before 11am on Sundays.
Passengers travelling from Glasgow to Edinburgh and back will instead have to use trains to and from Queen Street low level, via Airdrie and Bathgate, which take on average around 15 minutes longer than on the flagship line that will be closed.
To compound the problem, roadworks on the M8 are causing major delays for anyone who wants to drive instead.
The disruption – which comes a month after the re-opening of Glasgow Queen Street high level following a mammoth closure – is to allow for engineers to work on electrification of the line.
But the Network Rail project is months behind schedule and an industry source said the work could have been carried out simultaneously had the scheme been on track.
A ScotRail Alliance spokesman, however, claimed this would have caused even more disruption.
Electric trains were due to be running by December but the upgrade will now not happen until July next year.
The new disrupted timetable will run from September 4 to March 31, 2017, with a monthlong break in the middle for the festive period when the line will be open as normal. David Dickson, ScotRail Alliance infrastructure director, said: ‘Central Belt electrification will allow us to run faster, longer, greener trains and cut journey times, while increasing the number of seats available.
‘We understand the inconvenience this work will cause and every effort has been made to minimise disruption as much as we possibly can.
‘Our engineers have been working continuously throughout the year to electrify the main Edinburgh-Glasgow line. The infrastructure we now need to enhance is at the eastern end of the route.
‘Completing this work during the Queen Street tunnel closure would not have reduced disruption but increased it – affecting travel into both Glasgow and Edinburgh rather than just one city.’
Routes between Edinburgh and Perth, Dunblane and Stirling will also be affected by the evening and Sunday engineering works, as well as those between Glasgow and Inverness, Aberdeen, Dundee and Alloa.
Scottish Labour’s transport spokesman Neil Bibby said: ‘Few other places in the world have seen as much disruption on a key transport route as we have seen on this route over the past two years.’
It was announced earlier this month that regulated peak time rail fares in Scotland are set to rise by 1.9 per cent next year – increasing the cost of an annual ticket between Glasgow and Edinburgh by £71.