The £60 million project to upgrade the Glasgow Queen Street tunnel has been completed, with most rail services due to return to normal.
Passengers were faced with longer journeys over the past five months as engineers worked round-the-clock to renew 1,800m of concrete slab track and install more than 4,000m of new rails through the structure.
High-level services were originally due to restart on Monday but ScotRail announced last month the tunnel will open a day earlier, with normal services resuming on Sunday.
Station platforms and track layouts within Queen Street have also been extended and altered as part of the project, and both the tunnel and station have been prepared for the electrification of the main Glasgow-Edinburgh line next year.
Transport minister Humza Yousaf helped tighten the final bolts on the new slab-track inside the tunnel on Friday.
He said: "This has been an unprecedented project, both in engineering terms and in the scale of the operation required to keep people moving and services diverted via the underground platforms during the works.
"This is a key milestone in our programme of investment for Scotland's railways and literally paves the way for the introduction of a new generation of electric trains."
Phil Verster, managing director of the ScotRail Alliance, said: "The successful, early delivery of this project will allow us to introduce faster, longer and greener trains on the main Edinburgh-Glasgow line - delivering thousands of extra seats, shorter journey times and improved accessibility for customers."
Over the next three years, works will continue within Glasgow Queen Street as engineers extend the station out towards George Square and create a new concourse and passenger facilities.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereLast Updated:
Report this comment Cancel