Executive Summary

Scotland has an extensive railway network, it connects our cities, towns and villages for business and leisure travel, supports access to healthcare, education, and training facilities. We are committed to facilitating these vital connections with rail services that are reliable, resilient and cater to passenger needs. We are taking action to replace ScotRail trains that are reaching the end of their useable life.

The Scottish Government is committed to building on its impressive record of modernising Scotland’s railway: this strategy demonstrates how train fleets will be replaced to achieve this and to sustain the long-term resilience and reliability of our passenger services.

Wider Context

As a key component of Scotland’s transport system, our strategy to replace ScotRail’s fleet is a central part of delivering the strategic vision set by Transport Scotland.

Our National Transport Strategy sets out a 20 year plan to support our priorities to reduce inequalities, take climate action, help to deliver inclusive economic growth and to improve our health and wellbeing. Scotland’s railway directly supports these four priorities.

Having a reliable, accessible, and affordable railway provides access to jobs which secures an income for people across the country, opens the doors to education and training opportunities for young people, ensuring they have the best start for a bright future. Our railway is for everyone and we work closely with our delivery partners to remove barriers to our services by ensuring improvements to accessibility are embedded in the work that we do. We are reducing inequalities.

Our railway is part of a transport system which allows people to make more sustainable travel choices and we are committed to prioritising investment to promote sustainable travel. Encouraging more people away from their cars and onto the railway will help to reduce Scotland’s transport emissions. We have taken action to make rail travel more affordable by permanently removing peak fares. Now we are now taking action to ensure we have resilient and modern fleets that will not only attract, but retain, our passengers for years to come. The fleets we are procuring will be cleaner, greener, and more efficient which will yield benefits for tackling emissions across the rail network. We are taking climate action.

Scotland’s railway binds our country together and supports our tourism, hospitality, cultural and leisure sectors. Scotland’s success depends on these sectors and the connections that the railway provides for people and goods. We need to ensure our services continue to provide these connections both now and into the future. Replacing our fleet will sustain these services and will ensure our railway helps to deliver inclusive economic growth.

Having a transport system that supports health and wellbeing will ensure better outcomes for our population. Reliable, efficient, affordable, and accessible rail services will attract people away from their cars and so reduce the number of harmful pollutants released into our air. Improved air quality leads to better health outcomes for people across Scotland, both young and old. Beyond this, replacing our trains with cleaner and greener alternatives will ensure the rail sector plays its part in improving air quality and the overall health and wellbeing of Scotland.

More widely, the Scottish Government has set legally binding targets of reaching net zero emissions by 2045. Rail only contributes around 1% of total transport emissions but has a key role in reducing the overall transport emissions envelope through ensuring modal shift. Our trains need to be reliable, need to encourage modal shift and need to be modernised. We are taking action to do this through this plan.

The approach outlined in this plan is also aligned with the recommendation to decarbonise the rail network within the Strategic Transport Projects Review 2 (STPR2) which informs transport investment in Scotland for the next 20 years.

In addition to this, the Scottish Government continues to face significant financial pressures and it is important that the actions we take to deliver a transport system that is sustainable, inclusive, safe, and accessible are financially responsible.

We recognise our rail network exists within this wider strategic context and our plan to replace our fleets has been informed by the priorities set by Transport Scotland and the Scottish Government.

Our Plan

We are replacing ScotRail trains as they reach the end of their useful life. This will ensure we have modern and resilient trains that passengers can rely on. This plan sets out our route map to transitioning our fleets and we will do so in a way that is operationally, financially and environmentally sustainable.

Our fleet transition strategy prioritises the operational sustainability of our rail services against the uncertain and often challenging financial landscape. Our track and train decisions will be integrated, aligning with infrastructure enhancement and renewal plans. We will also be flexible to capitalise on recent technological advances that would enable us to secure cheaper, greener and more efficient trains. To do this in a cost-effective way that balances passenger needs we have identified the following prioritisation of our rail services:

InterCity

The diesel trains that currently operate on our InterCity routes are approaching the end of their life. In December 2024, we began the procurement to replace these trains; the replacement fleet will be cleaner and more reliable with improvements in comfort, efficiency and travel experience similar to other high speed train journeys in Great Britain. This action will sustain the connections between seven of Scotland’s major cities and support access to jobs, education leisure and cultural experiences while growing regional economies.

Suburban

We have launched the procurement for a single new fleet of electric trains, some of which will have batteries to displace the midlife diesel trains that run on the Fife and Borders routes and replace the electric trains on some parts of the Strathclyde network which are reaching the end of their life. Electric trains provide greater comfort and reliability for passengers, as well as costing less to operate and maintain. These are benefits that we have already seen since the introduction of the Class 385 and 380 trains which operate on some of the key routes on our network and have been popular with our passengers. It is only right that more of our passengers can benefit from newer and greener trains.

Rural

The actions we are taking to modernise our suburban network will have positive impacts on our rural lines through the introduction of the more modern and cleaner diesel trains which will be cascaded from our Fife and Borders routes. This will improve reliability, resilience, and comfort for our passengers while we continue to explore the zero-emission alternatives for the rural market.

The Impact

This year marks 20 years since Transport Scotland was established and the devolution of executive powers over rail funding, specification and strategy for Scotland’s railway. Since the devolution of rail powers, the Scottish Government has continued to take bold action to modernise Scotland’s rail network in order to deliver better and more efficient services for passengers through electrified services. This plan represents the next step in that journey towards providing a reliable, resilient and modern rail network for the people of Scotland.