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Monday 26 Mar 2018

Passengers reminded to plan ahead of Easter rail improvement work

Region & Route:

Scotland’s Railway: Scotland

Passengers are being reminded to plan their journeys in advance this Easter weekend as Network Rail engineers will be working around-the-clock over the bank holiday to deliver more than £23m of improvements across Scotland’s railway.

Over 2,500 staff will work around 40,000 hours on projects across the central belt, in the south west and in the north east of Scotland.

Nationally, Network Rail will be delivering more than 400 projects over Easter as part of a £118m investment across Britain. 

In Scotland, there will be major investment across the country, including rebuilding Livingston South Station and continuing work on electrifying the Edinburgh-Glasgow via Shotts line.

More than a kilometre of new track will be laid on the West Coast Main Line near Carstairs and further progress will be made on a £100m signalling system renewal around the south of Glasgow.

In the south west, engineers will be laying new tracks and working on improvements to drainage systems underneath the West Coast Main Line at Lockerbie and in the north east, engineers will be altering five bridges between Aberdeen and Inverurie as they prepare  to double-track the railway.

The programme of work this Easter is just part of Network Rail’s five-year Railway Upgrade Plan – a multi-billion pound investment in the rail network which will improve passenger journeys in the months and years ahead.

Most of the country’s services are unaffected by this investment programme but some routes will see significant changes to normal services and so passengers need to plan ahead this Easter. 

Mark Carne, chief executive at Network Rail, said: “Our Railway Upgrade Plan is the biggest in a hundred years. A number of massively complex and hugely challenging projects are on the home straight. These will bring faster journeys, more comfort and greater reliability to millions of people who rely on the railway.

“While most of the network is open for business as usual, some routes are heavily affected and so we strongly advise passengers to plan ahead this Easter.”