Officials from East Dunbartonshire Council will continue to investigate ways to improve Milngavie Station’s lacklustre rail service.

Members of the council’s Place, Neighbourhood and Corporate Assets committee approved a report on this at a meeting on Thursday, October 4.

Just 27.9 per cent of Scotrail trains arrive at Milngavie station on time – the worst figure in Scotland – and 78.4 per cent within five minutes – the worst performance in central Scotland.

Having been increased from two trains an hour to four, the Milngavie line is operating at full capacity.

In 2016 rail expert Nick Donovan was commissioned to recommend ways to improve Scotland’s rail network. One of the 20 points in his report specifically referred to Milngavie and said: “Urgently put in measures for right-time departures at Milngavie station.

“An urgent study should be completed and set of actions put in place to support right time departure of trains from Milngavie in an unperturbed operation. Milngavie is selected as a priority location for this piece of work as the data, so far as it can be disaggregated, together with site observations and evidence from front line discussions, points to this being the most likely location for benefits to network-wide PPM to accrue.

“This is due to the complexity and interaction within the North-Electric services and also due to the Edinburgh destination for two trains per hou,r which carry delay across to the East Coast Suburban network.”

In April this year, councillors agreed seven points of action to improve rail services. Since then, council officers have been working to achieve those points.

However, an application for funding from the Local Rail Development Fund to support further investigation of the reliability problems was rejected, as Network Rail was already undertaking this work.

Council officers will continue to  liaise with Network Rail in regards to their review of the Argyle and North Clyde Electric services.

The Argyle line runs from Rutherglen Central Junction to Finnieston West Junction with stops along the route including: Dalmarnock, Argyle Street, Glasgow Central Low Level, Anderston, and Exhibition Centre. The North Clyde electric services main line runs from Edinburgh Waverley to Helensburgh Central via Bathgate and Glasgow Queen Street (low level). There is a short branch to Springburn, two routes between Hyndland and Dalmuir, a branch to Balloch and the branch that runs to Milngavie.

It is expected that this review will highlight feasible courses of action to improve services in future.