Engineers are starting to install overhead power cables on the main Edinburgh-Glasgow line this month as work to electrify the route in 2016 gathers pace.
Part of the Scottish Government-funded, £742m Edinburgh to Glasgow Improvement Programme (EGIP), electrification will deliver faster, longer and greener trains for customers on the Edinburgh Waverley to Glasgow Queen Street line from December 2016.
Over the next six months, engineers will be installing stanchions to support the new overhead lines and stringing over 150km of power cables between the two cities – with the first sections of cable going up later in October.
Most of the electrification work will be carried out at night, but some late service alterations will be in place to help maximise the time available to complete it.
After 21:30 on Sundays to Thursdays between October 5 2015 and March 17 2016, some services into Glasgow Queen Street – including the Edinburgh, Stirling, Alloa and Dundee trains – will be using diversionary routes and will have extended journey times. A limited number of stations will also be served by replacement bus services.
The evening alterations will be suspended over the Christmas period – from December 11 2015 to January 2 2016.
„The Edinburgh to Glasgow Improvement Programme is a massive investment in Scotland’s railway that will help to deliver long lasting benefits for individual passengers and the wider economy. Electrifying the line between our two biggest cities will allow us to run faster, longer, greener trains and cut journey times, while increasing the number of seats available.”Rodger Querns, EGIP programme director
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Network Rail owns, manages and develops Britain’s railway – the 20,000 miles of track, 40,000 bridges and viaducts, and the thousands of signals, level crossings and stations (the largest of which we also run). In partnership with train operators we help people take more than 1.6bn journeys by rail every year - double the number of 1996 - and move hundreds of millions of tonnes of freight, saving almost 8m lorry journeys. We’re investing £38bn in the railway by 2019 to deliver more frequent, more reliable, safer services and brighter and better stations.
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