Installation of new track and the upgrade of level crossings and signals are currently taking place during a 10 day possession of railway between Inverness and the town of Keith in North East Scotland.

 

Work forms part of a rail improvement programme between Inverness and Aberdeen and around 380 engineers and operatives are working around the clock.

 

Contractor BAM Nuttall’s spokesman for the project Stuart Mackay said: “These intensive periods of activity are what the industry looks forward to. As we move through the week the focus will be on turning the construction site into a railway.”

 

Highlights of the work include the demolition of redundant signal boxes at Elgin and Forres and the installation of new sections of track near each station. Signalling is being upgraded towards Inverness, stations are being improved and Elgin’s level crossing will be upgraded to a full barrier crossing.

 

Network Rail’s delivery director for Scottish infrastructure projects Matthew Spence said: “The Aberdeen to Inverness improvement project will transform train travel between the two cities. Work we are undertaking is vital to the delivery of this project.”

 

The improvement scheme will lead to an hourly service operating between Inverness and Elgin during the day by December 2018, a half hourly service between Aberdeen and Inverurie by the end of 2019 and an increase in the frequency of end to end services to once an hour in the longer term.

 

♦ Doncaster’s new National College for High Speed Rail was officially opened on Monday by the Education Secretary Justine Greening. Along with a second campus in Birmingham, the new college will train 150 people this academic year and educate 1200 people when both operate at full capacity.

 

National College for High Speed Rail chief executive Clair Mowbray said: “We want to make sure that we have a UK workforce that has the skills to not only deliver High Speed 2 and other major infrastructure projects, but also become the pioneers of the UK’s new high speed rail industry.”

 

And last week a new rail academy was officially opened by the Transport Secretary Chris Grayling in Cheshire. The Alstom Academy for Rail in Widnes is due to train 500 apprentices over the next five years.

 

Training will include safety and maintenance of vehicles such as Pendolino trains used on the West Coast Mainline. The train company’s managing director Nick Crossfield said he is proud to be playing a part in creating a new generation of highly skilled railway engineers.

 

(Photo: Network Rail)