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Friday 27 Nov 2020

Scotland’s Railway on-track for £16m Christmas upgrade

Region & Route:

Scotland’s Railway: Scotland

Passengers, and freight customers, will benefit from more than £16m of investment in Scotland’s Railway over this Christmas and New Year.

Network Rail will be working at dozens of locations to carry out vital projects to renew key pieces of rail infrastructure.

Engineers will be relaying track, renewing junctions and refurbishing structures across the country with work taking place in Glasgow, Edinburgh, Stirling, Perth and Inverness.

In Glasgow, a key line into Glasgow Queen Street High Level station will be affected from Christmas Day until January 2 while engineers renew points - rails which move to allow trains to cross from one track to another - and replace over 1km of track at Cadder.

This will have an impact on some services in and out of Glasgow Queen Street, but alternative routes between Glasgow and Edinburgh will be available. A number of services will continue to run.

On the south side of the Clyde, engineers will be working from New Year’s Day until the early hours of January 4, to renew junctions and life-expired track between Muirhouse and Eglinton Street, near Glasgow Central.

In Stirlingshire, engineers will be delivering a range of works to renew track, upgrade signalling and level crossings while in Perth and Inverness works will be delivered to improve track at both stations.

Passengers who need to travel over the festive period are being urged to check their journey in advance.

Those travelling are also reminded to continue following the Government’s COVID-19 travel guidance and if you must use public transport wear a face covering, travel at quieter times and maintain a distance from other passengers wherever possible.

Passengers can check how their journey may be affected over the Christmas period by visiting www.nationalrail.co.uk or by checking individual operators’ websites.

Kris Kinnear, Network Rail Scotland’s capital delivery director, said: “The work we are undertaking over the festive period is vital to the long-term future of Scotland’s Railway and part of a £4bn investment being made in Scotland’s rail infrastructure between now and 2024.

“These projects will help make our railway more resilient, more reliable and more sustainable, but such complex infrastructure improvements cannot be delivered without some short-term closures of the railway.

“We’re urging passengers who need to travel over the festive period to plan ahead and check how these works may affect their journey this December and early January.”