May Day weekend disruption for Scottish rail travellers

Scottish rail passengers face major disruption over the May Day holiday weekend including no direct trains between Glasgow and England.

More than 820 improvement projects across Britain are planned over the two May holiday weekends. Picture: Network Rail

The west coast main line between Glasgow and Carlisle will be shut on Sunday, 6 May for signalling work in Motherwell, with Virgin Trains and TransPennine Express services replaced by buses.

CrossCountry and Virgin Trains East Coast Trains’ services between Glasgow and the east coast main line will also be replaced by buses on 5-6 May because their route to Edinburgh via Carstairs will be closed.

However, passengers can still travel to Edinburgh on ScotRail trains and change in the capital.

Other lines affected include Partick-Motherwell/Lanark via Glasgow Central.

The replacement of a bridge in Stirling will halt trains between Falkirk and Perth, affecting travel to the north on 5-6 May.

Buses will be substituted between Glasgow and Perth, and Falkirk Grahamston, Stirling, Dunblane and Perth.

Buses will also operate instead of trains between Aberdeen and Dyce on the line to Inverness.

Network Rail, which is carrying out the work, said disruption would be similar to over the Easter weekend.

BACKGROUND: Network Rail ‘will work around clock’ to finish £23m upgrades

It is doing more than 820 projects over the weekend and the Spring bank holiday weekend on 26-27 May, which have been scheduled for the work because there are fewer people travelling than normal.

They include improvements on the line between Heathrow Airport and Paddington in London, when no trains will run on 6 May.

Network Rail chief executive Mark Carne said: “This May, thousands of rail workers will be working round the clock to deliver crucial upgrades to the rail network as part of our railway upgrade plan.

“This huge investment programme will provide faster, better services and help relieve overcrowding to respond to the huge growth on Britain’s railways.

“While most of the network is open for business as usual, some routes are heavily affected and so we strongly advise passengers to plan ahead this May.”