NETWORK Rail is to undertake £6 million worth of ‘vital’ upgrades at locations in and around Edinburgh this Christmas and New Year.
The work will take place over the Christmas and New Year holidays while trains aren’t running to reduce disruption for customers, Network Rail said.
Project teams are set to renew track, improve drainage, upgrade signalling, as well as installing rockfall protection and other improvement works across seven sites in order to keep Scotland’s Railway safe and reliable.
At Calton tunnel, near Edinburgh Waverley, engineers will be working ‘around-the-clock’ from late on Christmas Eve until the early hours of December 27 to deliver nearly £1 million in track upgrades.
A further £1.4 million will be invested in upgrading the drainage system at Haymarket tunnel over Christmas Day and Boxing Day. At Ratho, to the west of the city, engineers will be undertaking rockfall protection work worth £650,000 over the same period. This safety-critical project will install a specialist netting system on a rock cutting above the railway near the former station.
Signalling systems will also be improved at Portobello junction over Christmas with £1.6 million being spent on new equipment.
At New Year a further £1 million will be invested, with work being carried out to improve drainage on the line near Bathgate from New Year’s Eve until January 2 and track renewal work taking place at Broomhouse, between Haymarket and Edinburgh Park stations.
Liam Sumpter, MD of Network Rail Scotland, said, “The work we are carrying out around the capital over the festive period is a part of a five year, £4 billion investment in Scotland’s Railway.
“Our engineers will be working around-the-clock to deliver these vital projects as quickly as possible and at a time when services aren’t running – allowing us to build a more reliable railway for our customers without impacting on their journeys.”
