The devastating impact of Storm Eowyn continues to wreak havoc on Scotland’s rail network with many ScotRail services unable to run for a third day. Friday’s rare red warning still looms large as Network Rail staff continue to remove fallen trees and debris from tracks across the country.
On Saturday the rail companies revealed the 100mph winds caused almost 400 incidents on the Scots lines, including fires near Dunblane and Renton. However some services were able to run to and from Edinburgh, Perth, Inverness and other routes across the north and east.
Services in and out of Glasgow continue to be affected. A roof was spotted on the track at the tunnel entrance to Glasgow Queen Street High Level, with no trains running through that station until work to remove the debris is complete.
In a post on X, formerly Twitter, at 7.22am on Sunday, ScotRail said some of the lines they had managed to reopen included:
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between Perth and Inverness
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between Inverness and Elgin
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between Inverness and Aberdeen
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between Dundee and Aberdeen
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between Perth and Dundee
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between Edinburgh and Tweedbank
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between Edinburgh and Dunbar
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between Drem and Edinburgh
A statement from ScotRail website at 8am on Sunday said: “The impact of Storm Éowyn has been felt across Scotland’s Railway, with extremely high winds causing significant damage to infrastructure throughout the country.
“Our colleagues at Network Rail are working flat out to remove fallen trees and other debris from the tracks. They also need to carry out repairs to some of the damage, such as overhead lines. All of this needs to be complete before we can safely run trains.
“Unfortunately, this means that ScotRail services will remain heavily impacted throughout Sunday, 26 January. The safety of our staff and our customers is our absolute priority, and we will only run trains when it is safe to do so.
“We will provide further updates when we have more information. Customers should check their journey before attempting to travel.” More information can be found on their website.
The storm also left around 100,000 Scots without power from Friday and into the weekend. A spokesperson for the Scottish Government said around 35,000 properties in Scotland were still without power on Saturday evening.
John Swinney also appealed for “patience” while the work to restore services affected by the storm was carried out. The First Minister posted on X: “After the significant impact of Storm Éowyn, work is underway to restore power supplies and transport networks.
“It will take some time to complete and I appeal for the patience of the public. Power company staff and our public servants are working at speed to restore services”.
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