North-east Scotland rail upgrades for 2026

[och aye]

I wasn't aware of this upgrade. Does this upgrade include upgrading the single section of track at Unay to double track?

North-east rail upgrades on track for 2026 completion

Railway upgrades that could slash journey times between Aberdeen and the central belt by more than 20 minutes are on track to be completed in five years'

www.pressandjournal.co.uk

Major improvements are to be carried out to the East Coast Main Line as part of the Aberdeen City Region Deal at a cost of £200 million.


There have been repeated calls for the line to be upgraded for more than a decade, with business chiefs claiming shorter journey times will lead to more business opportunities and encourage new visitors.


Initial plans to upgrade the stretch through the Usan junction were ditched after it emerged it would save just two minutes.


But proposals for wider upgrades along the route are expected to deliver far more radical results.

Quicker journeys between key cities​

A series of proposals including line speed enhancements, signalling improvements and more passing loops could cut 24 minutes from journeys between Aberdeen and Edinburgh, to two hours and 10 minutes.


Eight minutes would be saved on journeys to Glasgow, down to two hours and 30 minutes.




And trips to Dundee would be three minutes quicker, at one hour and 10 minutes.


Transport Scotland had earmarked 2026 for completion of the work, and a new report has revealed the project is progressing on schedule.


An options selection process relating to stations along the route is also expected to be completed in July, and is described as “progressing well”.

 

[InOban]

If you read the link it states that Usan was dropped because the cost would be very high and the time saving would be just two minutes. There seems no method of valuing the increased robustness of the timetable that would result.

 

[Red Onion]

I’m curious as to what the upgrades will be. The time savings suggest it will be mostly south of Dundee within Fife.

 

[waverley47]

Proposals come from pdf E on this page. It's a master list of proposals to be considered throughout Scotland as part of the next ten years of transport improvements.

Some good stuff, but take all this with a pinch of salt, there are in total about 2000 separate proposals to be considered.

 

[Red Onion]

That is some list and could probably generate a thousand threads on here! I assume that the report is just a list and these aren’t fully documented options, rather a “that might be a good idea” type of list?

 

[clc]

The original aim stated in the STPR was to have one express train per hour from Aberdeen to Glasgow with a 2h15m journey time, so 2h30m is a bit disappointing tbh.

 

[Bald Rick]

There seems no method of valuing the increased robustness of the timetable that would result.

There is. But with such a sparse service, it’s not worth much.

 

[GLC]

How much time saving could be achieved by the time the wires reach Aberdeen? I’m sure this would depend on a lot of factors, not least of which what electric unit ran up there, but is there a guesstimate figure?

 

[Tobbes]

How much time saving could be achieved by the time the wires reach Aberdeen? I’m sure this would depend on a lot of factors, not least of which what electric unit ran up there, but is there a guesstimate figure?

Without linespeed improvements, presumably only on the acceleration to linespeed; but if it were something like class 745s replacing HSTs, then it could be a few minutes i suppose (having been used to Class 90 + Mk 3 performance on the GEML, it is still surprising how much faster the 745s accelerate.)

 

[lachlan]

The original aim stated in the STPR was to have one express train per hour from Aberdeen to Glasgow with a 2h15m journey time, so 2h30m is a bit disappointing tbh.

And the Stonehaven call was already cut to try and reduce the journey time. Hopefully further calls aren't cut and if time savings can be found elsewhere, the Stonehaven calls reinstated.