SCOTLAND'S capital city could descend into traffic chaos due to train station anti-terrorism barriers when thousands of rugby fans pour into Edinburgh for the Calcutta Cup.
Taxi drivers have warned Waverley train station's new security barriers will create a traffic jam around the area.
A huge travelling support is expected when Scotland host England in the Calcutta Cup at Murrayfield in a fortnight - with the station a prime port for their arrival.
The new barriers have drawn criticism since their installation last Monday, with taxis forced to queue all the way up Waverley Bridge while waiting their turn to enter the station. Network Rail drafted in two stewards to manually operate the new barriers as the automatic 30-second wait between the barriers closing and reopening caused major tailbacks.
Raymond Davidson, secretary of the Edinburgh Taxi Association, believes there will be further disruption ahead of the 5pm kick-off on February 8.
He said: "Those barriers will be properly put to the test that weekend. I would hope that Network Rail have thought of this because there could be chaos."
Station bosses, however, insisted they were "confident" the new system will withstand the big rugby crowds.
A Network Rail spokesman said: "We are confident the system will provide a good service for passengers while also helping to meet our need to enhance security and improve the station environment."
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 hereComments are closed on this article