Thirty miles of railway track being laid south of Edinburgh in the United Kingdom will be made from steel supplied by Tata Steel.
The Borders Railway represents the longest completely new railway line built in the UK for more than 100 years.
Under its contract with Network Rail, Tata Steel will be supplying over 7kt of rails in 108-metre lengths. The company’s key account manager John Austin said Tata was delighted to be supplying steel for such an historic line. The plan is to ship more than 700 tonnes of rails per week.
The rails will be manufacturered in Tata’s Scunthorpe plant where it will be fully safety and quality-checked before being shipped out on specially modified rail-carrying wagons.
The new Borders Railway will have four new stations built in Midlothian and three in the Scottish Borders. Journey times between Tweedbank and Edinburgh will take less than one hour and there will be trains running every 30 minutes during peak times.
The Borders Railway is being built to ease congestion on the main roads between the Scottish Borders and Edinburgh.
The line is due for completion in the summer of 2015 and will cost almost £300 million.
Leigh Goble, Network Rail’s business support manager (national supply chain) said, “The type of contract Network Rail has with Tata Steel means we are able to specify exactly what type of rail we need, and when we need it, to complete this exciting project on time.”