Travel disruption expected as heavy rain and floods to hit Scotland

Travel disruption is expected across Scotland after flood warnings were issued and the Met Office extended an alert for heavy rain in the wake of Storm Babet.

SEPA warned Aberdeenshire and Aberdeen City, Dundee, Angus, and Tayside to prepare for disruption and the Met Office has warned of further flooding, damage to homes and disruption to transport.

LNER have revealed there will be extremely limited train services between Edinburgh and Aberdeen from Friday to Monday.

They also warned a speed restriction imposed by Network Rail will create “significant disruption” across its services.

Due to severe weather forecast across Scotland, there are extremely limited train services between #Edinburgh & #Aberdeen, Fri 27 Oct to Mon 30 Oct

A speed restriction imposed by @NetworkRailSCOT will result in significant delays to our services.

Check before you travel.

1/3 pic.twitter.com/0TioJYt1BK
— London North Eastern Railway (@LNER) October 26, 2023

A spokesperson said: “There will be no LNER services running from Edinburgh to Aberdeen after 18.35pm today, Thursday 26 October. There will be no south bound service from Aberdeen to Edinburgh, from 10am on Friday 26 October until Monday 30 October.”

ScotRail has told customers that there will be disruption to services between the Central Belt and Aberdeen and Inverness following the weather warning.

A spokesperson said: “A Met Office yellow weather warning for heavy rain has been in place across the northeast of Scotland since 12pm today (Thursday, 26 October), and will remain in place until Sunday, 29 October.

“As a result, customers travelling between the Central Belt and Aberdeen and Inverness will need to change at Perth (for travel to Inverness) and Dundee (for travel to Aberdeen) as there will be no direct ScotRail services from the start of service on Friday, 27 October, until Sunday.

“The train operator will operate more localised shuttle services to help keep customers moving. This will see services operating between Aberdeen and Dundee, and between Inverness and Perth.

“Speed restrictions will be in place as a safety precaution, which means services may be subject to delay or cancellation. This is because heavy rainfall is forecast in areas which already have high water levels and saturated ground after Storm Babet.”

Network Rail Scotland warned: “More extremely heavy rain is on the way. It won’t be to the levels from Storm Babet, but it will affect the same areas, already with saturated ground. It will bring a risk of flooding.”