Oil spill cancellations and delays continuing to affect ScotRail trains in and out of Inverness; Caledonian Sleeper also running an hour late
Train services heading in and out of Inverness were facing further disruption on Monday morning after an oil spill on Sunday evening.
In an update in the early hours of Monday morning, ScotRail said that "train services running to and from the station are returning to normal but some services may still be delayed".
They added: "We had an earlier oil spillage in the Inverness area which affected our trains to/from Inverness on Sunday evening.
"Our staff are onsite and have attended to the spillage and the line will be proved by locos from Inverness and Perth before services... start in the morning."
At the time they had expected the disruption to continue until 6am, but a subsequent update now warns passengers to expect disruption until at least 9am - and at least two trains have been cancelled and some others have been cut short.
The 6.47am Kingussie to Inverness train, and the 8.41am Inverness to Glasgow Queen Street are the two services that were cancelled at the time of writing.
The 5.36am Inverness to Glasgow Queen Street and the 6.38am Inverness to Edinburgh trains, meanwhile, were starting in Perth instead of the Highland capital due to the disruption.
A couple of trains on the Inverness-Aberdeen line were also running slightly late.
NEW: Following a chemical spillage, the line remains closed between Perth and Inverness in both directions. Staff have attended to the spillage, but the route still requires to be proved by locos between Inverness and Perth in both directions, before the line can fully reopen. pic.twitter.com/ZcMDCJwvd2
— ScotRail (@ScotRail) November 25, 2024
And the Caledonian Sleeper train from London to Inverness was running almost an hour behind schedule at the time of writing, having left Blair Atholl station at 7.25am instead of its scheduled time of 6.28am. It is not known if this is due to the knock-on effects of the oil spill but it had been running only three minutes late when it left Perth.
Elsewhere on the Highland network, passengers on the Kyle Line were being warned to expect delays to their journeys as a result of speed restrictions brought in during strong winds associated with Storm Bert. These restrictions were expected to remain in force until 11am.
The Far North Line was not affected by the restrictions and services were running normally.
