With Christmas less than a month away, the ScotRail Alliance has said it will do everything it can to keep people moving during the holidays.

Releasing details of train times for the Christmas and New Year period, the ScotRail Alliance encouraged customers to plan their journeys now. The last trains of the day will depart earlier than normal on both Christmas Eve and New Year’s Eve, and there will be changes to train times over the Christmas and New Year period.

The ScotRail Alliance has set up a dedicated webpage to provide customers with information on train times over the holidays. The website can be viewed at scotrail.co.uk/Christmas.

Important details include:
– As with previous years, no trains will run on Christmas Day or New Year’s Day.
– On Boxing Day a limited service will run in parts of the west of Scotland, and trains on some routes in and around Glasgow will be replaced by buses to allow major improvement works to take place. Signalling equipment and overhead power lines will be upgraded, and sections of track will also be replaced on the west coast mainline.
– All trains will run as normal between 27 and 30 December, with the exception of the Cumbernauld to Motherwell route, which is replaced by buses while improvement works take place.
– On Tuesday, 2 January a reduced service will be in place across much of the country, with trains starting from mid-morning.

Improvement works on the main route west from Edinburgh Waverley will be taking place:

• Edinburgh to Bathgate services will be replaced by buses
• Edinburgh to Dunblane services will start/terminate at Linlithgow instead of Edinburgh
• Edinburgh to Glasgow Queen Street via Falkirk High services will be diverted

Graham Heald, the ScotRail Alliance’s head of customer experience, said:

“We will be working flat out to keep people moving during the Christmas and New Year holidays.

“But with many of our customers taking time off work to be with their loved ones, the network is quieter between Christmas and New Year. That means it’s an ideal time to carry out vital improvement works while causing as little disruption to our customers as possible.

“There will be changes to train times, so we encourage our customers to plan their journeys now on our app or at scotrail.co.uk.”