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Friday 12 May 2023

£1.2 million track upgrade complete at Glasgow Central

Region & Route:

Scotland’s Railway: Scotland

Project to make the railway safer and more reliable for passengers finishes.

A 10-week programme to renew track at Glasgow Central's platform 1 has been completed.

Passengers travelling through Scotland’s busiest station will now benefit from this £1.2m project which was undertaken to enhance the safety and reliability of the railway for years to come.

These essential works were part of the Scottish Government’s ongoing investment in Scotland’s Railway. The works included:

• replacing 720 baseplates which are fixed to the concrete slab that holds the track in place
• installing over 100 new timber sleepers along the length of platform 1
• upgrading tactile paving along the platform edge
• renew signalling cables
• clean the buffers
• deep clean of platform 1 and removal of overgrown vegetation

Had normal access arrangements been used, this work would have been spread over a period of approximately four years’ worth of Saturday nights and would have been considerably more costly.

Instead, this 10-week programme ran at the same time as the closure of Carstairs Junction so that disruption to passengers was kept to a minimum.

Tom Podger, Senior Project Engineer, Network Rail Scotland said: “Our team of engineers have been working around the clock to deliver this project safely and on time. Their work will improve the track at platform 1 as part of efforts to enhance the safety and reliability of the railway for years to come.

“We are pleased that the works have been completed on time and within budget.”