Friday 26 Jan 2018
Fort William-Mallaig line to reopen on Monday
- Region & Route:
- Scotland’s Railway: Scotland
The rail line between Fort William and Mallaig will reopen on Monday (January 29) as engineers make good progress on repairing damage caused by a landslip near Glenfinnan.
Over 1,000tonnes of stone and mud was deposited on the track after the mountainside above the railway gave way over night on Sunday into Monday (January 22).
Engineers have now cleared the material away from a train which struck the landslip, rerailed the vehicle using specialist machinery and removed it from the incident site.
Over the next two days they will install extra drainage around the area, make repairs to the track and undertake further work to secure the slope above the line.
David Dickson, ScotRail Alliance infrastructure director, said: “Our engineers will be working hard throughout the weekend to reopen the line for customers.
“The recovery operation is progressing to plan and we remain confident that we will be able to reopen the line for customers from the start of service on Monday.
“The isolated location, and steepness of the slope above, has made this a complex recovery operation and we are grateful to customers for the patience they have shown during this period of disruption.”
A replacement bus service remains in operation between Fort William and Mallaig to keep passengers on the move.
Customers affected by this issue can use ScotRail’s Delay Repay compensation scheme, which kicks in for services that are delayed for 30 minutes or longer. Full details on this can be found at scotrail.co.uk/delay-repay
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