Railway fully reopened across Scotland following Storm Eowyn
Transport Secretary Fiona Hyslop praised Network Rail staff for working in ‘difficult circumstances’ to clear all routes.
The railways in Scotland have fully reopened following Storm Eowyn a week ago.
The storm caused significant damage to infrastructure on the rail network, which led to many route closures.
The final route which remained shut, Girvan in South Ayrshire to Stranraer in Dumfries and Galloway, reopened overnight into Friday, Network Rail Scotland said.
Transport Secretary Fiona Hyslop praised Network Rail staff for working in “difficult circumstances” to “help get Scotland back on the move”.
Posting on social media site X, Network Rail Scotland said engineers had been dealing with “hundreds” of fallen trees and had been working night and day to clear the routes affected.
The company said: “After 800+ incidents, hundreds of fallen trees and 100 teams working 24/7 to recover Scotland’s Railway after #StormEowyn, we reopened the Girvan-Stranraer line overnight, completing our work.
“Thanks so much for your patience over the last few days.”
Almost 300,000 customers were left without power after the storm swept in on January 24, bringing with it gusts of up to 100mph in some places.
A red “danger to life” weather warning covered the central belt and Dumfries and Galloway, stretching north on the west coast to Jura in Argyll and Bute, for most of the daylight hours.
Calum Carmichael, 19, from New Cumnock, East Ayrshire, died in hospital after his car was hit by a falling tree in nearby Mauchline during the storm, but before the red warning began.
All those left without electricity were reconnected by Thursday.
More than 206,000 SP Energy Networks customers across central and southern Scotland were among those affected and around 700 engineers were deployed across the network to carry out repairs, with most re-connected within 24 hours.
SP Energy Networks said the storm caused the worst damage the network has ever seen and repairs had been “complex and challenging”.
Andy Smith, SSEN Distribution’s director of customer operations for the north of Scotland, said: “Eowyn was an exceptional storm which required an exceptional response from us.
“More than 1,000 people have been working hard since the storm first hit to reconnect homes and support customers, while a huge volume of network reconstruction has been done in challenging conditions.”
