ScotRail passengers in Fife and Borders to get greener battery electric trains - but not until 2031

The battery trains, which the Scottish Government first signalled in 2022, will run in Fife, which has suffered from overcrowding because of the unreliability of its ageing diesel trains, and on the Borders Railway.

An accompanying £342 million will be spent on electrifying about half the lines in Fife and one third of the Borders Railway by 2029 so that the expected 28 battery trains can recharge in service.

About 40 per cent of such work has already been completed between Edinburgh and the Forth Bridge.

Overhead electric wires will also be installed between Kinghorn and Ladybank, Leven and Cardenden in Fife, and between Newcraighall and Shawfair at the northern end of the Borders Railway and on a longer stretch between south of Stow and the line’s terminus at Tweedbank.

The process for ordering the 69 trains - the remaining 41 will be electric - will start this autumn and they are expected to arrive in 2031. Their cost has not been specified.

The electric trains will replace class 318 and 320 electric trains which are nearly 40 years old on lines in and around Glasgow.

In 2022, the Scottish Government announced plans for the trains, among three new fleets to be ordered, with the first ones due to be in service by 2027.

That was part of a plan to phase out all of ScotRail’s diesel trains by 2035.

However, that date, which was seen by the rail industry as hugely ambitious, was put back a decade to 2045 in December.

The Scottish Government’s Transport Scotland agency said some of the trains to be replaced were up to nearly 40 years old and the oldest of their type in regular use.

It said ScotRail’s class 158 trains were increasingly expensive to keep running and required “frequent unplanned maintenance”.

The new fleet will replace 97 three-carriage diesel and electric trains, with fewer needed because they will have more or longer carriages, which might be articulated.

They will also enable level boarding in Fife and the Borders, making rail travel more accessible for people with disabilities, pushchairs and bikes.

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Transport Secretary Fiona Hyslop, speaking about the announcement at North Queensferry station in Fife on Friday, said it “demonstrates our continuing commitment to making Scotland’s railway even greener, with greater capacity and reliability”.

She told The Scotsman it was only now being made because ministers had to manage such spending “to ensure we can deliver huge projects”.

She said: “Most people will welcome that it’s happening, but it’s being done in a planned and orderly way to get best value for the public but also to make sure we can do it with the industry in a staged way.”

A new fleet of ScotRail inter-city trains is already in the pipeline - although it is expected to be a stop-gap of second-hand diesels.

However, Ms Hyslop was non-committal as to when the third fleet, for other lines such as those in the Highlands, would be ordered. That was originally due to have been by this year.