Media centre

Thursday 29 Mar 2018

Story to complete Waverley platform enhancements

Region & Route:

Scotland’s Railway: Scotland

Story Contracting has replaced Carillion as the main contractor for the platform extension works at Edinburgh Waverley.

Platforms 5 and 6, to the east of the station, and 12, to the west, are being made longer as Waverley prepares for the arrival of Virgin East Coast’s new Azuma trains and ScotRail’s new class-385s.

The enhancements are being delivered as part of the Scottish Government’s Edinburgh Glasgow Improvement Programme (EGIP) and the Department for Transport-funded Intercity Express Programme (IEP).

Original contractor Carillion began work on the project in 2017 before going into liquidation in January of this year. Story has previous experience on the project, having been sub-contracted by Carillion to deliver elements of the works.

Waverley’s newly-extended platform 12 entered service last December, and Story will now complete the work to extend Platforms 5 and 6, to the east of the station, to 275m.

Kris Kinnear, Network Rail’s deputy regional director for infrastructure projects in Scotland, said: “The electrification of our railway will allow us to run faster, longer, greener trains and cut journey times while increasing the number of seats available for passengers on new state-of-the-art train fleets.

“We will be working closely with Story to minimise the delay to this project caused by Carillion’s liquidation and to reduce any inconvenience for customers at Waverley as much as possible.”

The infrastructure works, and the new trains they will enable, will help to transform travel on both the East Coast main line and on the main line between Scotland’s two biggest cities.

The platform extension project will increase on-train passenger capacity and reduce journey times – by around 10 minutes between Edinburgh and Glasgow and by around 20 minutes between the two capitals.