Scotland’s Railway is an integral part of Scotland’s social and economic infrastructure supporting our communities, businesses and environment.
Scotland’s Railway covers a large geographical area from the Borders to Thurso at the far tip of the North East of Scotland, accounting for almost 20 percent of the GB network.
It provides rapid access along busy commuter routes to our seven cities, servicing the varied needs of our business and leisure commuter services, including cross border services and rural services.
What's Changed?
5 years of progress
Over the last five years 2014-2019 we have delivered many major projects to improve passenger journeys across Scotland:
1. Borders Railway
Completed September 2015 the reinstated railway from Edinburgh to Tweedbank has proved a to be a great success with passenger numbers continuing to grow year on year. More than four million journeys have been made on the Borders Railway in its first three years. Last year seen a near 6% increase on 2017/18.
Consistent with other reinstated routes in Scotland the Borders Railway has been a catalyst for investment along the 30-mile route since it opened 6 September 2015. With 10,000 new homes and 150 hectares of commercial land being built in the immediate vicinity of the railway corridor it demonstrates just how the railway can generate economic activity.
2. Shotts Electrification
The rolling programme of electrification continues to deliver benefits with the Shotts line being completed on time and on budget and entered into passenger service on 31st March, creating a fifth electrified route between Scotland’s two largest cities.
The investment was made to add resilience and capacity into the network to cater for projected growth in passenger numbers from towns such as Livingston and West Calder into Edinburgh in the east and from Cleland and Shotts into Glasgow in the west.
The project also upgraded or extended platforms at nine stations, delivered step free access at West Calder, Cleland and Fauldhouse with Addiewell to follow and completely redeveloped two stations; Breich and Livingston South.
3. Edinburgh Glasgow Improvement Programme (EGIP)
With electrification work completed October 2017 supporting the introduction of new faster, longer, greener trains the main-focus of the programme was at Edinburgh Waverley and the completion of the new track layout between platforms 10 and 11; upgrade of track, signalling and lengthen platforms at Scotland’s second-busiest station.
Platforms 5 and 6, to the east of the station, and 12, to the west, have been extended as Waverley for LNER’s new Azuma trains and ScotRail’s new class-385s, the work not only enables these longer trains to run, but increases the flexibility of the station and improves the reliability of the infrastructure.
4. Stirling, Dunblane and Alloa Electrification
Stirling, Dunblane, Alloa electrification reached a milestone on December 9, almost 4 months ahead of the regulatory milestone, when ScotRail began operating electric services from Stirling to Dunblane and Alloa following the completion of electrification of the two lines, this enabled the delivery of the enhanced timetable including the 42-minute journey time between Edinburgh and Glasgow.
This was followed by the electrification of the Grangemouth Freight Line in early 2019 to support the introduction of electric rolling stock to serve the freight depots on this route.
5. Aberdeen to Inverness Improvement Project
The Aberdeen-Inverness Phase 1 project completed successfully on 22nd of August with the entry into service of the double track between Aberdeen-Inverurie. A significantly enhanced train service commences along this corridor from the introduction on the new timetable in December 2019.
Construction has commenced on Kintore new station and this has progressed well taking advantage of the Aberdeen-Inverness project engineering access. The station is on schedule to open in May 2020.
6. Highland Main Line
The Highland Mainline Phase 2 project completed successfully in March 2019. This saw signalling improvements made at Aviemore and Pitlochry, more double track through Aviemore as well as extended platforms at Pitlochry to facilitate longer trains and more seats.
In sum these improvements will allow more trains to run on the route and faster journeys.
