RAIL travellers will face major disruption over the Easter holiday weekend with five days of engineering works halting some services south of the border.
Passengers on the busy West Coast route will be bussed between Glasgow and Carlisle between Friday April 14 and Tuesday April 18, with new tracks and points laid at several key parts of the network.
Over the Easter weekend, CrossCountry and Virgin Trains East Coast will not run between Edinburgh and Glasgow Central, with customers advised to use alternative lines between the cities, with buses in place between Motherwell and Glasgow Central.
A bus service will also be in place for TransPennine Express and Virgin Trains West Coast passengers between Carlisle and Glasgow Central.
The majority of ScotRail trains will be diverted between Motherwell and Glasgow Central, but buses will be in place on certain routes.
Infrastructure operator Network Rail said new tracks and points will be installed at Carstairs in South Lanarkshire and at Polmadie, in Glasgow, while at Motherwell new, modern signalling systems will be put in place.
Engineers will also be refurbishing and maintaining bridges, level crossings and tracks elsewhere across Scotland during the holiday weekend.
Network Rail said its engineers would "deliver more than £5m of infrastructure enhancements for Scotland’s railway" over the weekend.
David Dickson, infrastructure director of ScotRail Alliance, the joint venture currently operating Scotland's railways, said: “We understand these works may inconvenience some passengers, but such a significant investment cannot be delivered without a little temporary disruption, and every effort has been made to reduce the impact of our activities as much as possible.
“This is the latest phase of our investment programme for Scotland’s railways and it is vital to maintaining a reliable service on the West Coast main line – one of Europe’s busiest rail routes.
“The work we are undertaking this Easter weekend will help to provide a more modern and more reliable railway for the millions of passengers who use local services in, and cross-border services through, Lanarkshire each year."
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