Edinburgh-Aberdeen route will "end up with discontinuous electrification"

ScotRail’s Edinburgh-Aberdeen route will “end up with discontinuous electrification”, a leading rail engineer has said.

Campbell Braid, Chair of the Rail Industry Association’s leadership in Scotland, said “real challenges” in introducing power around Dundee are likely to obstruct the roll-out of full electrification of the line.

Last December, the Scottish Government delayed the full 'decarbonisation' of Scotland’s railway from 2035 to 2045. There has been political pressure to electrify the Edinburgh-Dundee and Dundee-Aberdeen lines for decades, but no deadline has been set.

Speaking at a fringe meeting at the Scottish Conservatives’ conference on June 14, Braid said that signalling upgrades were finally planned for the route.

“In the current climate, where money is really tight, we’re going to do some work between Dundee and Arbroath, and then we’re going to do an area to Montrose where we’re going to close all [those mechanical signal] boxes and get that into a computer, into a VDU box station,” said Braid, who is also signalling programme director for Siemens in Scotland.

“That will make that journey time better.

“I think in the interim because funding’s constrained, we’ll end up with discontinuous electrification, because there’s some real challenges.

"For example, Dock Street tunnel in Dundee: how do we get the wires through there? It’s really difficult.

“Dundee station sits below the waterline of the Tay, so it’s really challenging from an engineering perspective.”

Electrification of the line from Edinburgh to Dalmeny, along with a limited section of the Fife Circle, had been due for completion by December this year.

But it has suffered a series of setbacks –notably the cancellation of works in December 2022.