WORK has begun on a massive £164 million improvements project to remodel Carstairs Junction and get rid of the bottleneck it creates, along with the removal of a 50mph speed restriction.
The location is a key one on the West Coast Main Line (WCML) in Scotland but operationally, is life expired. The Scottish Government is funding the upgrade.
With more than 200+ services passing through the junction on a weekday the layout is no longer suited to higher traffic levels, and enabling works for the junction upgrade first began in 2020.
Engineers are installing a new power supply with the ability to switch off the overhead lines remotely in order to carry out maintenance. This will reduce the amount of time the railway is closed in future. Removing the speed restriction through track layout alterations will bring an improvement to overall journey times.
The first phase of work in a three-month programme took place between March 4-19 and resulted in no direct services to Glasgow Central and Edinburgh on the WCML through Carstairs.
Avanti West Coast ran shuttle services between Carlisle and Glasgow via Dumfries and the Glasgow & South Western route using Class 221 units. Some freight workings, such as the Daventry-Mossend ‘Tesco’ trains were diverted via this route too.
Carstairs has for too long been a restriction on the WCML and a simplification and upgrade of the track layout will make the area more resilient to
