Network Rail engineers will be working at locations across Scotland this festive period to carry out vital projects to renew and upgrade key infrastructure.

Passengers, and freight customers, will benefit from more than £17m of investment in Scotland’s Railway over this Christmas and New Year.

Engineers will be relaying track, renewing junctions and refurbishing structures in Glasgow, Edinburgh and Lanarkshire from Christmas Eve until early January.

Most work will be carried out while trains aren’t running, but significant activity on the West Coast Mainline around Uddingston, Motherwell and Carstairs will affect customers.

From end of service on Christmas Eve until January 2, work will be taking place to renew Uddingston Junction, while over the Christmas and New Year weekends work will also be underway to install foundations for new overhead powerlines around Carstairs.

These works will mean some trains will be diverted and others will be replaced by buses for sections of their journey.

Passengers who need to travel on the West Coast Mainline – or on ScotRail services via shotts and Carstairs – over the festive period are being urged to check their journey in advance.

Passengers can check how their journey may be affected by visiting www.nationalrail.co.uk or by checking individual operators’ websites.

Kris Kinnear, Network Rail Scotland’s capital delivery director, said: “The work we are undertaking over the festive period is vital to the long-term future of Scotland’s Railway.

“Helping to make our infrastructure more resilient and more reliable, the work we are doing is part of a five-year, £4bn investment in our railway.

“However, such complex improvement work cannot be delivered without some short-term disruption of the railway and we’re urging passengers on these routes to plan ahead and check their journey in advance.”