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Thursday 5 Jul 2018

Dingwall level crossing upgrades rescheduled

Region & Route:

Scotland’s Railway: Scotland

Network Rail’s plans to upgrade two level crossings in Dingwall have been rescheduled to take place in October due to the need for additional design work.

The upgrades, originally planned to take place this summer, will see full barriers installed to further improve safety for train passengers, pedestrians and motorists.

Dingwall Middle crossing, where the railway crosses the A862, is currently protected by a single barrier on each carriageway and Dingwall No.1, on Craig Road, is an open crossing, with no barriers. Both are subject to regular trespass incidents and close calls.

The crossings are to be upgraded to full barrier crossings, which include traffic lights, two single lane barriers on each side of the crossing (4 barriers in total) and an object detection system which scans the crossing to check it is clear.

Construction of the new crossings requires vegetation clearance and the installation of new equipment on site. This will be ongoing throughout the summer period, ahead of the barrier installation.

Some installation work will require road closures as follows:

Dingwall Middle (Newton Road, Dingwall): Thursday 19th July 0700 – Sunday 22nd July 11:00
Dingwall No.1 (Craig Road, Dingwall): Thursday 2nd August, 0700 – Sunday 5th August, 11:00

The final installation and testing of the new equipment will require two week road closures in both locations. The planned dates for these are:

Dingwall Middle: 15th October to 29th October

Dingwall No.1.: 29th October to 12th November

Train services will not be affected by these works.

David Dickson, Infrastructure Director for Network Rail Scotland, said: “These level crossing upgrades represent a significant improvement for rail and road safety.  Our consultation work with the local community earlier this year indicated support for these improvements and we look forward to seeing them delivered.

“Our aim is to deliver this work with as little disruption as possible, however, we will require two short closures this summer plus two week road closures for each crossing to install and test the new equipment this autumn.”