Fife Circle Line
Encyclopedia : F : FI : FIF : Fife Circle Line
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Principal stations
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Service
The service includes the Edinburgh-Kirkcaldy stretch of the East Coast Main Line, which includes the world-famousForth Bridge. On the Fife side, while this line hugs the coast, the circle is formed by a line from Inverkeithing that loops back round to Kirkcaldy by an inland route through the old Fife coalfield. Narrowly speaking, just this line could be called the Fife circle.There is a goods line connection from Dunfermline to Stirling via Longannet Power Station that rail campaigners would like to reopen to passengers, as is being planned only at the Stirling end. Coal trains that presently cross the Forth Bridge are planned for rerouting by that line so that the bridge's maximum signalling capacity for trains can be used to increase the local passenger service. Fife Circle is a priority for present investment in new rolling stock. Its morning peak services can be notoriously overcrowded.
The operator is now First ScotRail. This is part of First Group, the same company as runs the South Queensferry-Edinburgh bus service 43 that the Fife Circle train parallels from Dalmeny station. Yet they still operate as competing services taking no account of each other, with train fares slightly higher than bus and no ticket interchangeability. Also, a new disabled-friendly station entrance opened at Dalmeny in 2004 after a successful local press campaign by parents with prams, but it is in the opposite corner of the station to the ticket office and no allowance is being made, even after a further local campaign, for passengers to use the new entrance and buy tickets on trains. Visiting tourists might easily innocently miss being aware of the ticket office's presence, let alone whether it is open, which is only for parts of the morning.
It has never been explained why Haymarket station in Edinburgh has never been listed in the British network as "Edinburgh Haymarket". This make it difficult for Inter-City passengers to know it is in central Edinburgh.
In 2000 a new, much-needed station was opened in the expading eastern suburbs of Dunfermline and given the cumbersome name of "Dunfermline Queen Margaret" which takes up two lines in local timetables. The name comes from the 11th Century Queen Margaret.
Stops on the Fife Circle line
Edinburgh to Fife
- Edinburgh Waverley is the 21-platform major station of the Scottish capital, under the castle rock and opening onto Princes Street and its gardens.
- Haymarket serves the city centre's West End and Tollcross districts.
- South Gyle railway station is located in the South Gyle residential suburb. It also serves the South Gyle industrial estate, the Gyle Shopping Centre, and is about a kilometre from the attractive suburb of Corstorphine.
- Dalmeny is the station at the south end of the Forth Bridge. It is at the edge of South Queensferry.
- North Queensferry is the village at the north end of the Forth Bridge
- Inverkeithing is ancient burgh and port with a shipbreaking history.
Loop line
- Rosyth serves the village well enough but is on its inland side nowhere near the port. It also serves the south of Dunfermline.
- Dunfermline Town serves the centre of Dunfermline.
- Dunfermline Queen Margaret serves Dunfermline's eastern suburbs and is near Queen Margaret hospital.
- Cowdenbeath, coalfield towns
- Lochgelly
- Cardenden
- Glenrothes with Thornton
Main line
- Dalgety Bay serves the modern town with a shining whitewash look.
- Aberdour serves the village with awards for its "silver sands" quiet beaches.
- Burntisland serves the seaside resort town facing directly across to Edinburgh.
- Kinghorn serves the town at the "horn" of the coast where it turns from facing Edinburgh to the open North Sea
- Kirkcaldy serves the still active old market town hugging the coast with an unusual long sea promenade off the town centre.
- Markinch This is a railhead for nearby Glenrothes, a Silicon Glen new town. It is much closer to it than the loop line station called "Glenrothes with Thornton" that was opened in 1992.
Future Services
The east peninsula of Fife beyond Kirkcaldy is not rail served post-Beeching, and the devolved government is considering backing a branch reopening to Leven, given the role of cross-Forth communications in Fife's economy. To spread some of the traffic onto a Burntisland-Leith ferry crossing is also proposed frequently, the last attempt at it in 1991 was weakly promoted as a commuter route and flopped, but Leith has developed a lot since then, into Edinburgh's government district, but the trains don't go there. Some buses from south Fife do, but buses are notoriously subject to Forth Road Bridge congestion.
| Railway lines in Scotland | ||
|---|---|---|
| Main lines: | East Coast - West Coast - Ayrshire Coast, Glasgow-Dundee (via Perth) - Glasgow-Edinburgh (via Carstairs) - Glasgow-Edinburgh (via Falkirk) - Edinburgh-Aberdeen - Glasgow South Western - Highland | |
| Glasgow commuter lines: | █ Argyle - █ Ayrshire Coast - █ Cathcart Circle - █ Croy - █ Cumbernauld - █ Inverclyde - █ Maryhill - █ Motherwell-Cumbernauld - █ North Clyde - █ Paisley Canal - █ Shotts - █ South Western - █ Whifflet | |
| Edinburgh commuter lines: | █ Bathgate - █ Crossrail - █ Dunblane - █ Fife Circle - █ North Berwick - █ Shotts | |
| Rural lines: | Aberdeen-Inverness - Far North - Kyle of Lochalsh - West Highland | |
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