COMMUTERS face six weeks of disruption on the key Glasgow to Edinburgh rail line as electrification works progress.
Part of the main Edinburgh-Glasgow route will be closed from June 13 to July 27 as part of the £750 million Edinburgh-Glasgow Improvement Programme (Egip) to enable longer and faster trains to run between Scotland's two biggest cities.
Journeys which normally take around 50 minutes could take up to an hour and 15 minutes during the period, which will see the Winchburgh tunnel in West Lothian closed to trains while signalling infrastructure is upgraded. The tunnel is being also being enlarged as part of the Egip project to allow overhead wires to be fitted.
As a result trains will be diverted via Dalmeny, beside the Forth Bridge, then have to reverse onto another line.
The work will coincide with the Open Championship at St Andrews which is expected to increase demand for east-west rail services.
Services between Dunblane, Alloa and Edinburgh are also likely to be hit.
A spokeswoman for Transport Scotland said the organisation was working "closely with both Network Rail and ScotRail to minimise the duration of the closure".
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