Message from ScotRail – keeping you moving during Forth Road Bridge closure

This is to advise of ScotRail Alliance plans to keep people moving during the closure of the Forth Road Bridge, which is a matter of national significance as it is one of the busiest, most important routes in Scotland.

We’ve added 6,500 extra seats on trains to and from Fife each weekday, which includes bringing in extra trains from other parts of Britain.

We have also reviewed our refurbishment programme and added more trains without holding up the improvements such as power sockets and better wifi.

In addition, we looked at other parts of the rail network to identify services that we could move around in order to ease the situation in Fife. This was the last thing we did, because nobody likes to see their own service reduced or changed.

The alterations begin today (Monday 7 December) and will last until the bridge reopens.

The main elements are:

The existing Fife timetable will continue, and we have done everything we can to add more carriages to these services at peak times. We will also run a shuttle service between Inverkeithing and Edinburgh Haymarket – not Waverley.

Unfortunately, we have had to make some changes to services from Anniesland, Falkirk Grahamston, Kirkcaldy and Dundee.

• Anniesland – Glasgow Queen St High Level will have a reduced service (reduced from half-hourly to hourly).
• Falkirk Grahamston – Glasgow Queen Street via Cumbernauld – cancelled, with replacement buses in place to/from Cumbernauld)
• Glasgow – Kirkcaldy/Markinch (one a day in each direction) – cancelled.
• Glasgow – Dundee: Two services will be cancelled.
• There will be timing changes / amended station calls: Dundee – Edinburgh / Edinburgh – Glenrothes. Some departures will be earlier.

Our website – http://www.scotrail.co.uk/about-scotrail/news/forth-road-bridge-closure-keeping-you-moving – has more details of the changes.

These are exceptional circumstances and we have taken exceptional steps to address them. We want to help keep Scotland moving during the bridge closure. With the measures we are announcing today, we hope we can achieve that.

By bringing in other trains from elsewhere, pulling trains from our major refurbishment programme and, regrettably, moving a small number of trains from other parts of the network, we have managed to add an extra forty per cent capacity on our trains in and out of Fife.

This is an extra 6500 seats each and every weekday.

We are really grateful to our employees who have worked day and night to achieve this and to our customers for the patience they have shown while we put these plans in place.

Our advice to all is to plan ahead, whether travelling in and out of Fife or anywhere else in Scotland because there is a chance a service could change. In addition:

• You can download our freeApp and register with our free JourneyCheck service. They will let you know what is happening, where and when – in real time.
• Think about when you are travelling – especially on the Fife services. Peak time trains – despite everything we have done to add seats – will still be really busy. So, if you can stagger your journey and travel outwith the peaks it will make the world of difference.
• Beat the queues by getting your ticket in advance. Buying before you board is a much more convenient way to travel – and it often works out cheaper too. You can buy your ticket through our website and on our app.
• The ScotRailApp and JourneyCheck will keep you updated on what is happening on your own route.