The first of several feeder stations, which will connect to the network in September, was put in place near Paisley.
The installation is part of a £120m programme being backed by the Scottish Government to improve the resilience and reliability of the infrastructure and to support additional electrically powered passenger and freight traffic. The investment is key to helping meet the target to decarbonize Scotland’s Railway by 2035.
Lesley Pringle, project manager for traction power at Network Rail said: “This is the first of the new feeder stations to arrive and it’s a definitely been a challenging site but our colleagues from across the Scotland’s Railway team have worked tirelessly to ensure it runs smoothly.”
A temporary surface was constructed for the installation of the equipment, on which the crane was placed, and it was ensured that the ground conditions were suitable for lifting. The movement of the Tadano crane (ATF220G), which can lift up to 220 tonnes, was mechanically restricted to avoid overhead powerlines on-site.
The installation of electrical feeder stations should help to make travel greener and more sustainable for passenger and freight transport and remove many more vehicles from Scotland's roads.
“This work will boost the supply to our network in the central belt. This will help to deliver power to newly electrified lines and also provides us the additional capacity to run more trains on the existing network”, commented Brain Sweeney, project delivery engineering manager at Network Rail.
According to Allan Black, Senior Project Manager at SPL Powerlines, the relevant testing and safety procedures will now be completed to enable the feeder station to be brought into service in September. At the same time, installations at other sites are planned: “There has been a significant amount of work to prepare for this, and we’re already on site working at the next locations. Work started in the central belt and will extend as far as East Kilbride, Borders, Barrhead and Fife with completion due in 2026.”
