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The Fife Circle is the local rail service north from Edinburgh. It links all the towns of south Fife (and Cowdenbeath) and the inner Firth of Forth facing them.
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Service
The service includes the Edinburgh-Kirkcaldy stretch of the East Coast Main Line, which includes the world-famous Forth 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.
In 2000, a new station was opened in the expanding eastern suburbs of Dunfermline and given the name of Dunfermline Queen Margaret, after the nearby Queen Margaret hospital.
Service patterns
Edinburgh-bound
- 1 tph - Cowdenbeath to Newcraighall, via Dunfermline and Edinburgh.
- 1 tph - Glenrothes with Thornton to Edinburgh, via Kirkcaldy.
- 1 tph - Newcraighall, through Dunfermline then Kirkcaldy, and back to Edinburgh.
- 1 tph - Edinburgh, through Kirkcaldy then Dunfermline, and back to Newcraighall.
Fife-bound
- 1 tph - Newcraighall to Cowdenbeath, via Edinburgh and Dunfermline.
- 1 tph - Edinburgh to Glenrothes with Thornton, via Kirkcaldy.
- 1 tph - Newcraighall, through Dunfermline then Kirkcaldy, and back to Edinburgh.
- 1 tph - Edinburgh, through Kirkcaldy then Dunfermline, and back to Newcraighall via Edinburgh.
Fife Circle and Edinburgh Crossrail stations are served by a half-hourly service, with the stations from Inverkeithing to Edinburgh served by four trains per hour.
Stops on the Fife Circle line
Edinburgh to Fife
- Newcraighall is the end of the Edinburgh Crossrail serving Fort Kinnaird.
- Brunstane is a suburban station serving The Jewel and the suburban areas of Brunstane and Duddingston.
- Edinburgh Waverley is 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 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 history of shipbreaking.
Here the main line and loop line divide.
Loop line
- Rosyth serves the town 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, serves the town and the nearby village of Kelty.
- Lochgelly serves the town and the Benarty coalfield villages.
- Cardenden
- Glenrothes with Thornton, serves the village of Thornton, and the new town of Glenrothes
Main line
- Dalgety Bay serves the modern town with a shining whitewash look and busy railway station.
- 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.
The two lines join forming a circle, but half of all services via Kirkcaldy and a few peak services via the loop line continue to the next main line stop.
- 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 served by railways post-Beeching, and the devolved Scottish government is considering backing a branch reopening to Leven, where a new halt will be built next to the swimming pool and at the disused power station. This is to satisfy the long term upward trend of cross-Forth communications in Fife's economy. Along this branch line is Cameron Bridge. Network Rail have scheduled an inspection and assessment of the freight loading gauge for goods on this line in 2010.
It has also been proposed to start a Burntisland-Leith ferry crossing in order to spread some of the Fife-Edinburgh traffic. A previous attempt at promoting this ferry service as a commuter route failed in 1991.[citation needed] Leith itself, now Edinburgh's government district, is not served by rail but is planned to be linked to the Edinburgh tram network. Leith is also served by some bus routes from south Fife, but these bus services are subject to Forth Road Bridge congestion.
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