The West Highland Line re-opens ahead of Schedule
Hard to believe in light of the glorious weather we have enjoyed over the Bank Holiday weekend that a week has passed since the AmcoGiffen team in Scotland was battling with the elements to complete an emergency works programme to re-open the West Highland Line, days ahead of schedule, following recent flood damage at locations around Crianlarich.
Quickly mobilising, our team has worked round the clock at five locations to repair damaged rail infrastructure – clearing debris, devegetation, reconstructing embankments, enhancing drainage and rebuilding the track-bed. Critical to this successful outcome has been our fantastic supply chain.
Facing very challenging conditions, we worked safely and collaboratively with Network Rail to deliver this early completion – an achievement recognised by Alex Hynes, Managing Director of Scotland’s Railway who commented: “I am delighted that we are opening the West Highland Line earlier than first anticipated. Our engineers worked around-the-clock often in challenging weather to rebuild the line and get it open as quickly as possible for our customers.”
Further recognition came from Michael Matheson, The Scottish Government’s Cabinet Secretary for Transport, Infrastructure and Connectivity:
“The Network Rail team have been working on site just south of Crianlarich 24-hours-a-day in order to get the West Highland Mainline repaired and have had to bring in 3000 tonnes of aggregate in what is a very difficult site to get access to.
My thanks to everyone, our contractors, suppliers, train operators and freight partners for their on-going cooperation. It’s this kind of collaboration which was absolutely vital to getting passengers and freight moving again and I’m hugely proud of the teams involved.”
Our work at Crianlarich is a further demonstration of our ability to deliver effective emergency response services for Network Rail in Scotland – we reinstated the Lamington Viaduct on the West Coast Main Line in 2016 in the aftermath of Storm Frank and at Loch Eilt we reinstated train services following a major landslide in early 2018.
