TRAINS have started to run on the reopened line between Airdrie and Bathgate, but the recent bad weather in Scotland has left its toll: three of the new stations are being served by rail replacement buses, and the Scottish transport minister has resigned.

An hourly service started running on Sunday, but the stations at Armadale, Caldercruix and Drumgelloch are unfinished, because of the wintry weather, which Network Rail said had left up to a metre of snow. Work remaining to be done includes telecoms and car park surfaces, according to a Network Rail spokesman.

However, the new intermediate station at Blackridge was able to open to trains from the start of the new service, and there will be four trains an hour between Bathgate and Edinburgh during the peaks, which is twice the previous number.

Not only have three stations opened to buses rather than trains, but apart from the Bathgate section in the peaks the timetable is a shadow of what it should be: problems with new trains built by Siemens for the Ayrshire Coast lines mean that there are not enough units available to be transferred to Airdrie-Bathgate.

By the spring, ScotRail hopes to provide four trains an hour on the electrified, double track route, whose trains run through from Edinburgh Waverley to Glasgow Queen Street and on to Dalmuir and Helensburgh Central. 

Airdrie line trains also call at Edinburgh Park, providing an additional link between Edinburgh's modern business district and Glasgow.

In a related development, transport minister Stewart Stevenson has resigned. He had originally claimed that there had been a ‘first class’ response to the Scottish weather problems, but later accepted that he had not done enough to inform the public, who had been caught up in a “difficult and frightening set of circumstances”.

The new transport minister is Keith Brown, who was previously Minister for Skills and Lifelong Learning. Mr Brown said he was looking forward to his new transport responsibilities, with “all the challenges that involves”.

Backbench MSP Angela Constance has been chosen to replace Mr Brown, but her promotion to a government post will require Parliamentary approval.