Scotland’s rail and transport authorities have been scrambling to find extra trains and buses after engineers completely closed the Forth Road Bridge for a month after discovering cracks in the steelwork.
The bridge, one of Scotland’s most important road routes, was closed until early January after a 20mm wide crack was detected on a steel truss close to its north pier during a routine inspection. Up to eight other trusses could have similar defects.
As the closure caused chaos for commuters from across central Scotland, Fife and Tayside, as well as bus companies and hauliers, executives at ScotRail held urgent talks with English operators to find spare carriages and locomotives to help with tens of thousands of travellers facing long, disrupted journeys.
The closure, which was initially ordered shortly before midnight on Thursday, caused huge tailbacks and congestion on alternative roads on Friday morning. At the peak of the morning rush hour, one tailback to the Kincardine Bridge stretched for 11 miles, with drivers heading south facing an hour-long detour.
The decision to close the bridge until the new year came at a meeting of the Scottish government’s resilience committee chaired by Nicola Sturgeon, the first minister, after bridge engineers warned that delaying repairs would worsen the problem and make the crossing unusable.
With the bridge carrying 24m vehicles a year, Transport Scotland said urgent work was under way to increase rail services and capacity, create a dedicated bus corridor with extra park and ride facilities and possibly reintroduce passenger ferry services across the Firth of Forth.
Derek Mackay, the Scottish transport minister, said: “The decision to close the Forth Road Bridge is not taken lightly. It is based on the expert opinion of the engineers who operate the bridge day to day and that of independent experts in the field.
“Every effort is being made to open the bridge as quickly as possible but safety is the main priority. However, these works are weather dependent given the height and location of the bridge. We are aware of the potential economic impact for strategic traffic in the east of Scotland and on people living in local communities.”
With weekend storms and heavy winds expected to worsen driving conditions further across eastern Scotland, ScotRail ordered a queuing system to be introduced at Edinburgh Waverley station during peak hours for services over the Forth Rail Bridge.
#FRB Q system will be in place @ Edinburgh Waverley during evening peaks until further notice. Q will be South Mall, adjacent to plat 7/11
— ScotRail (@ScotRail) December 4, 2015
The bridge will only remain open for police, ambulances and fire crews on “blue light” emergency calls. Employers, the civil service and NHS Scotland boards in Tayside, Fife and the Lothians are putting in place contingency plans to cope with expected staff shortages which are likely to impact on services.
“We will continue to work closely with our neighbouring health boards, the Scottish ambulance service and Scottish government with a view to mitigating any potential disruption to our services,” said a spokesman for NHS Tayside.
It increased its normal 75-trains-a-day service to 100 trains and plans to maintain that level of extra capacity over the weekend. ScotRail, which said it was treating the closure as a national emergency, is planning to switch trains from other parts of Scotland.
But ScotRail executives, who expect to spend the entire weekend devising extra emergency trains in time for Monday’s rush hour, admitted they also had to find enough drivers and crew to staff the extra trains.
Train union leaders with the RMT warned that the crisis had exposed “a severe shortage of capacity” and a chronic lack of spare trains in Scotland.
“It is a ludicrous state of affairs when the main rail service is tipped into complete meltdown because of passengers seeking an alternative way of completing their journey,” said the RMT leader, Mick Cash.
The bridge’s closure was thought likely to have a significant impact on Christmas deliveries: Amazon’s biggest distribution warehouse in the UK sits a few miles north of the Forth Road Bridge near Dunfermline, while the drinks giant Diageo has a major spirits manufacturing centre and distillery in Fife.
However, Amazon said it had contingency plans which allowed it to cope with the bridge closure and was “confident” it could do so. “Amazon has a network of ten fulfilment centres in the UK and each of these serve customers across the country,” a spokesman said.
Martin Reid of the Road Hauliers Association said the closure could have “massive knock-on costs for the economy”. It would delay deliveries and increase costs for distributors and businesses over Christmas. “The costs to individual companies and the Scottish economy in the run-up to Christmas will be massive,” Reid said.
The defect has highlighted the bridge’s age: it is now more than 50 years old and has survived longer and with far heavier traffic than originally expected. Ministers are now building a £1.4bn replacement road bridge, the Queensferry Crossing, directly alongside it which is due to open later in 2016.
At a media conference at the bridge’s control centre, engineers said the 20mm-wide crack had been discovered in a truss under the southbound carriageway, close to the bridge’s north tower, during a routine survey.
They said it had happened quickly, and could not have been predicted. They had considered allowing light vehicles and banning HGVs while the repairs were carried out, but allowing traffic to continue using the bridge could have caused the part to fail, and that would “increase the risk of causing extensive secondary damage to the structure”.
“This is an unprecedented challenge in the maintenance of the Forth Road Bridge,” Mackay said. “On balance, following advice from engineers and independent experts, the full closure is essential for the safety of the travelling public and to prevent further damage to the structure of the bridge.”
Mark Arndt, an engineer with the bridge’s maintenance firm, Amey, said: “This is a complex engineering challenge. The component failure is in a difficult to access location and our response is also highly dependent on weather conditions.
“We continue to work around the clock on inspections, assessments and calculations along with the development of designs to effect the necessary repairs, while at the same time mobilising all the resources required to reopen the bridge as soon as is possible.”
Willie Rennie, the Scottish Liberal Democrat leader and a Fife MSP, said the government had to publish Transport Scotland’s full contingency plans as soon as possible, including details of extra rail services.
“People living in Edinburgh and Fife now face the prospect of weeks of disruption,” Rennie said. “This is the last thing that we needed to see in the run in to Christmas. Safety must come first, but this extended closure will cause huge inconvenience and impact on families and businesses alike. We need to be reassured that everything is being done to manage the disruption as best possible.”
Andy Willox, Scottish policy convener for the Federation of Small Businesses, said the closure would alarm businesses across the country. They would need clear advice on alternative routes.
“Not only will this closure impact those that use the bridge to bring their goods or services to market, employers of all description will face serious disruption,” he said. “While matters of safety should override other concerns, every effort should be made to minimise the impact on the economy.”