Media centre

Monday 23 Dec 2019

Passengers reminded to plan ahead for vital Haymarket junction upgrade

Region & Route:

Scotland’s Railway: Scotland

• On Friday, December 27, and Saturday, December 28, services into Edinburgh will be significantly disrupted.

• ScotRail are advising customers planning to travel to the Edinburgh area on these dates to consider making alternative arrangements.

Network Rail engineers will be working around-the-clock this Christmas to renew a key junction near Edinburgh Haymarket station.

From December 25 to December 29, Haymarket East junction will undergo a major upgrade to renew four sets of points (rails which move to transfer trains from one line to another) and replace over 250m of track.

Haymarket junction, which lies to the west of the station, is one of the busiest on Scotland’s Railway and is used by up to 30 trains an hour.

The upgrade will help to improve the reliability of the track and will mean the junction won’t need to be renewed again for decades.

This complex project will take several days to complete and has been timed to coincide with the Christmas and Boxing day holidays, when no ScotRail trains run into Edinburgh.

On Friday, December 27, and Saturday, December 28, services into Edinburgh will be significantly disrupted.

ScotRail are advising customers planning to travel to the Edinburgh area on these dates to consider making alternative arrangements, particularly on Saturday, December 28.

Normal services will resume on all routes into the city from 10:00 on Sunday, December 29.

The work at Haymarket is part of an £8m programme of enhancements being delivered across Scotland over the festive period. More than 2,500 railway staff will be out at sites around the country to complete vital projects – renewing life-expired tracks and junctions, upgrading signalling systems and enhancing our major stations.

In Glasgow, on Christmas Day and Boxing Day, new track will be laid on the approach to Glasgow Central station with engineers working to renew 300m of line at Shields Road on the south of the Clyde.

And in Lanarkshire, a major signalling upgrade will be completed with the control of signalling on the West Coast Mainline transferred from Motherwell Signalling Centre to the new, £200m West of Scotland Signalling Centre in Glasgow.

Liam Sumpter, Network Rail Scotland Route Director, said: “Haymarket East junction is a key part of Scotland’s Railway and is used by hundreds of trains a day travelling to destinations across Scotland and England.

“We understand the inconvenience this work will cause to some passengers, but renewing such a complex piece of our railway cannot be accomplished without a short-term closure of the line.

“Our engineers have carefully planned this project to be completed as quickly as possible and we are working hard alongside our train operators to keep passengers informed of the changes to services during this important investment in the railway.”

A breakdown of how journeys will be affected over the Christmas period can be found by visiting www.nationalrail.co.uk or https://www.scotrail.co.uk/christmas.