Glasgow-Edinburgh rail chaos, thousands delayed

Thousands of commuters suffered delays after several faults on lines affecting routes between Glasgow and Edinburgh. Picture: Ian Georgeson

The problems hit trains travelling through Haymarket in Edinburgh both this morning and yesterday afternoon, and Glasgow Central this morning.

Delays from the first incident, caused by a worn-out power cable at 3pm yesterday, totalled nearly ten hours, train operator ScotRail said.

Network Rail said this was followed by the breakdown of a motor which moves points at a junction at Haymarket at 7:45am.

It was fixed more than two-and-a-half hours later, with the disruption caused still being calculated.

The third incident involved points breaking down because of a detection contact failing at Glasgow Central - Scotland’s busiest station - just after 9:30am.

Network Rail stressed none of the problems were heat related.

A ScotRail spokeswoman said: “Yesterday’s infrastructure issues in the Haymarket area resulted in four trains being cancelled outright, ten part-cancelled [not running their full route] and scores of other services delayed due to the ensuing congestion.

“There were 574 delay minutes from that one event.”

Last year, transport minister Keith Brown called in Network Rail and ScotRail chiefs for a dressing down over poor punctuality following a series of incidents.

The latest figures show improved ScotRail punctuality, with 66.5 per cent of trains arriving within one minute of schedule in the four weeks to 27 May compare to 62.3 a year ago.

However, the figure was 58.7 per cent over the last year, slightly worse than in the previous 12 months.