Work on a £650,000 project to raise the height of walls bordering the railway at Royal Terrace and Union Road in Linlithgow is now complete.

The scheme was carried by Network Rail out as part of the Edinburgh Glasgow Improvement Programme (EGIP).

The investment will ensure the railway boundary is compliant with safety standards for an electrified railway and to protect the public from overhead cables.

The six-month programme involved raising the height of the listed Victorian boundary and saw specialist stone masons use 160 tonnes of locally sourced Scotch Buff sandstone to maintain the visual integrity, with existing coping stones being removed then replaced to further preserve the historic appeal of the raised walls.

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The project is part of a programme of work that has seen parapet heights raised on more than 100 structures in addition to the 60 bridges that have been raised in preparation for the electrification of central Scotland's railway.

Kevin McClelland, Network Rail route delivery director for infrastructure projects, said: "Our focus in raising the height of the walls is to safeguard the public as we transform the infrastructure to an electrified network. However, it is important to ensure that every effort is made to protect the integrity of listed structures and conserve the character of historic railway environments. Initial feedback so far has been positive and indicates that what we have delivered what we set out to do.

"This element of the project provided us with a number of challenges given the location and the existing footprint of the railway. I have to commend the team in the way that they worked to innovate and overcome these challenges to deliver a sympathetic enhancement of the railway boundary in a conservation setting with the minimum of disruption to the local community."

So far, EGIP has completed the £80m electrification of the Cumbernauld line, the £25m redevelopment of Edinburgh's Haymarket station and the completion of the new, £41m Edinburgh Gateway train-tram interchange.

(LM)