28.10.19
North East and Highland passengers to benefit from £4.5m investment
Network Rail Scotland has committed to an extra £4.5m of investment for enhanced performance in the North East and Highlands.
Regular maintenance budgets still stand; however, this boost will serve as a further addition to Scotland’s Railway and its reliability.
The funds will be directed into specific projects aimed at improving infrastructure to prevent faults or speed up the solution process, bringing minimal disruption to passengers.
This financial year will see the extra money put into the North East and Highlands, including the Highland main line, East Coast main line, Aberdeen-Inverness line and the Far North line.
It will also enable the recruitment of additional staff across Network Rail’s depots in Perth and Inverness and new machinery and equipment to assist them in these locations.
Other planned improvements will include renewing and upgrading signalling systems, delivering additional track maintenance, increased lineside vegetation clearance and investing in remote monitoring systems.
Alex Hynes, managing director of Scotland’s Railway, said:
“We are working hard across Scotland to drive up our performance and deliver the punctual, reliable railway our customers deserve.
“Punctuality across the country is improving and our maintenance teams in the North East and Highlands are working hard to reduce disruption as much as possible.
“This additional investment will be targeted at a range of initiatives which we believe will help to complement the extensive renewal and refurbishment work we already have planned – driving down delays and improving reliability.”
This comes after a similar successful £5m plan was delivered to the Glasgow area last year and saw a 30% improvement in the reliability of rail infrastructure.
Network Rail Scotland has improved the reliability of its infrastructure already by 26% compared to the last financial year and the next five years will see over £4bn in investments in Scotland’s by Network Rail.
This will enable an increase in services calling at Inverurie on weekdays, up to three trains per house with two additional morning peak trains into Aberdeen and an additional evening peak train out of Aberdeen.
It will also see an improved cross-city service, with 27 trains per day between Inverurie, Dyce, Stonehaven and Montrose.