Fife Circle Line

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.

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. Yet they still operate as competing services taking no account of each other, with bus fares slightly higher than train and no ticket interchangeability.

In 2000 a new, much-needed station was opened in the expanding eastern suburbs of Dunfermline and given the name of Dunfermline Queen Margaret, after the 11th century Saint Margaret of Scotland.

tops on the Fife Circle line

Edinburgh to Fife

*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 attractive 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 shipbreaking history.

Here the main line and loop line divide.

Loop line

*Rosyth serves the village 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, coalfield towns
*Lochgelly
*Cardenden
*Glenrothes with Thornton

Main line

*Dalgety Bay serves the modern town with a shining whitewash look.
*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, given the role of cross-Forth communications in Fife's economy.

It has also been proposed to start a Burntisland-Leith ferry crossing in order to spread some of the Fife-Edinburgh traffic. The last attempt at promoting this ferry service as a commuter route failed in 1991Fact|date=October 2007. 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 notoriously subject to Forth Road Bridge congestion.