JUST two trains an hour will travel to Fife later this week when the latest strike action takes place.

The limited service will run between Inverkeithing and Edinburgh Waverley on Thursday and Saturday as a result of the RMT industrial action.

ScotRail has warned of "significant" disruption and confirmed that just 11 routes will operate across the Central Belt, Fife and Borders on the days of strike action however these will only be operational between 7.30am and 6.30pm.

One of these will be the route from Edinburgh Waverley to Inverkeithing.

The pay dispute does not involve ScotRail staff however it will have a major knock-on effect on the train operator’s ability to provide services as the planned action will involve Network Rail staff, many of whom occupy safety-critical roles.  

Disruption to ScotRail services will not be confined to the days of strike action and will also impact the day following each day of action. 

On these days, there will be disruption caused by the reopening of signal boxes at different times across the country.

While large signalling centres in the Central Belt will be able to operate from 7.15am, this will not be the case at manual boxes elsewhere and it may well be early afternoon before many routes are able to operate as normal.

Customers are advised to check the ScotRail app or visit scotrail.co.uk for the latest information before travelling.

David Simpson, ScotRail Service Delivery Director, said: “It is very unfortunate to see such widespread disruption across the whole of the Great Britain rail network and we know this will be frustrating for ScotRail customers.

“Regrettably, this strike action by RMT members of Network Rail means that we will not be able to operate the vast majority of our services during the period of strike action. Customers should expect significant disruption to services on strike days, as well as the following day.

“We are able to operate on more routes than on the previous day of strike action, however, we are still only able to run a very limited number of services on these routes, so we’re advising customers to seek alternative means of transport and to only travel if they really need to.”