Edinburgh – Dundee railway line

This article or the following section is not adequately provided with supporting documents ( e.g. individual evidence ). Information without sufficient evidence could be removed soon. Please help Wikipedia by researching the information and including good evidence.

Edinburgh – Dundee
The Forth Bridge over the Firth of Forth
Gauge :	1435 mm ( standard gauge )
Legend from London on the East Coast Main Line 0 m 00 ch Edinburgh Waverley 1m 19ch Edinburgh Haymarket to London on the West Coast Main Line Edinburgh tram to Glasgow via Falkirk 4m 45ch South Gyle 5m 33ch Edinburgh Gateway by Linlithgow 9m 35ch Dalmeny Forth Bridge over the Firth of Forth 11m 22ch North Queensferry North Queensferry Tunnel Inverkeithing tunnel 13m 12ch Inverkeithing 14m 51ch Dalgety Bay 17m 34ch Aberdour former Trajekt von Granton 20m 10ch Burntisland Kinghorn tunnel 22m 59ch Kinghorn 25m 70ch Kirkcaldy 14m 52ch Rosyth from Stirling via Alloa 16m 68ch Dunfermline Town 18m 36ch Dunfermline Queen Margareth 22m 42h Cowdenbeath 27m 67ch Lochgelly 30m 00ch Card ends 34m 72ch Glenrothes with Thornton 33m 20ch Markinch 39m 04ch Ladybank 39m 09ch 0m 03ch 14m 10ch 44m 18ch 45m 66ch 149m 23ch from Glasgow via Stirling Moncrieffe tunnel 151m 25ch Perth to Inverness and Dundee via Errol 42m 26ch Springfield 44m 50ch Cupar 50m 68ch Leuchars Leuchars (old) Tayport former ferry to Broughty Ferry East Newport West Newport Wormite Tay Bridge over the Firth of Tay from Perth via Errol 59m 14ch Dundee to Aberdeen

The Edinburgh – Dundee railway is a railway line in Scotland . It connects Edinburgh over the Forth Bridge with the Fife region and from there on over the Tay Bridge to Dundee . It is part of the connection from London to Aberdeen . There is also a branch line to Perth . In Fife, part of the route will be connected to Edinburgh as the "Fife Circle" in the S-Bahn service.

history

In 1845 the "Edinburgh and Northern Railway" received permission to build a connection from Edinburgh to Perth and Dundee. The system was based on the idea of crossing the Firth of Forth and the Firth of Tay by rail ferries; initially only a stretch from Burntisland to the Firth of Tay and the junction from Ladybank to Perth was built. In addition, the world's first RoRo rail ferries went into operation on January 30, 1850 . The construction of the first bridge over the Forth of Tay began in 1871 and was put into operation in 1878. However, this first bridge collapsed in the famous catastrophe on December 28, 1879 , killing 75 people. Construction of a new bridge began immediately; today's Tay Bridge was opened to traffic in June 1887. On March 4, 1890, the Forth Bridge over the Firth of Forth was operational; since then, Dundee can be reached directly from Edinburgh without the use of ferries.

course

From Edinburgh Waverley , the line initially runs east and passes near Edinburgh Airport . The “Edinburgh Gateway” stop has existed in its vicinity since December 11, 2016, and it is possible to change to a tram to the airport terminal. At Dalmeny the line crosses the Firth of Forth on the imposing Forth Bridge; the bridge has been recognized as a UNESCO World Heritage Site since summer 2015 . On the north bank, in North Queensferry , the line reaches Fife. Only a good three kilometers further, after Inverkeithing , it divides into two branches: the northern branch leads inland via Dunfermline , while the southern branch follows the coast of the Firth of Forth. The two branches come together again in front of Markinch . S-Bahn services will be maintained on these two branches under the name “Fife Circle”. At Ladybank the line branches again. While the western branch leads to Perth , the eastern branch reaches Leuchars after a few kilometers , and thus the train station which is closest to the city of St Andrews . Then the western branch on the Tay Bridge crosses the Firth of Tay, with the north end of the bridge already in the area of ​​Dundee.

• 

  Edinburgh Waverley Railway Station

• 

  Perth Railway Station , 1989

Furnishing

With the exception of the branch from Ladybank to Perth, the line is consistently double-tracked. The route is not electrified (with the exception of the short section from Edinburgh Waverley to Haymarket); Meanwhile, electrification is being seriously considered in the medium term.

Today's operation

While the administration of the infrastructure is the responsibility of Network Rail , the scheduled passenger traffic is mainly carried out by ScotRail . In addition, individual long-distance trains (to and from Aberdeen) from LNER , CrossCountry and Serco run on the route .

literature

• Mike Bridge: TRACKatlas of Mainland Britain , Platform 5, Sheffield 3rd ed. 2017, ISBN 978-1-909431-26-3
• John Jackson: The Scottish Rail Scene in the Twenty-First Century , Amberley, Stroud 2019, ISBN 978-1-44568-308-9
• David Spaven: The Railway Atlas of Scotland, two hundred years of history in maps , Birlinn, Edinburgh 2015, ISBN 978-1-78027-238-2 .