Question reference: S5W-10685
- Asked by: Michelle Ballantyne, MSP for South Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
- Date lodged: 10 August 2017
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Current status: Answered by Humza Yousaf on 6 September 2017
Question
To ask the Scottish Government what action has been taken to deal with the effect of hot weather on passengers travelling on the Borders Railway.
Answer
Borders services are primarily operated by class 158 diesel, two carriage trains which are undergoing a major enhancement programme worth around £14M to deliver improvements to passenger facilities. Further work is planned over the coming months which will also improve the air conditioning equipment on the fleet to help regulate the on-train environment.
In addition Abellio ScotRail and the train owners Porterbrook agreed to replace all radiators across the class 158 fleet. This work has now been completed and since then no failures have been noted with the new radiators caused by overheating during hot weather.
This has helped to contribute to improved reliability of the fleet and service performance on the Borders route across the last 12 months.