The Scottish Government has announced a procurement plan to replace ScotRail’s InterCity trains.
The procurement will be led by ScotRail on behalf of Transport Scotland. It seeks to replace the High Speed Train (HST) fleet that operates on InterCity routes between Glasgow, Edinburgh, Aberdeen, and Inverness.
The new trains aim to improve comfort and accessibility, ensure reliability and reduce emissions.
“Resilient, reliable ScotRail services are key to encouraging more people to choose to travel by train rather than car, to cutting our transport emissions and to helping to move people around Scotland for work, leisure and learning. That is why we must build on our investment in Scotland’s railway infrastructure by investing in the services and trains which connect our key cities.
“Over 4 million passenger journeys were made on InterCity trains in the last year. We want to maintain and where possible, increase that number choosing to go by train between Scotland’s cities. We want to replace the current Intercity fleet with trains which provide more comfort and accessibility for passengers on these routes. This planned investment will ensure the reliability of our Intercity routes for the long-term, will reduce emissions from Intercity services and will support our efforts to decarbonise Scotland’s railways.”
Transport Scotland will announce further details on this announcement when the contract notice is published in the coming weeks.
