Rail services in Scotland will return to pre-Christmas levels but the new timetable is still short of 400 trains compared to pre-Covid times.

ScotRail has confirmed today that its temporary timetable will end on Monday, February 14.

The timetable had been introduced in early January, following the rapid spread of the Omicron variant, which led to 450 absent workers at its peak.

The firm says around 150 ScotRail staff are still off work due to Covid.

However, with the number of workers isolating in decline and restrictions being relaxed, the operator decided to bring its timetable back to 2,000 services a day.

Still, this is 400 services short compared to pre-pandemic levels.

According to the BBC, the firm was running 2,400 services before March 2020.

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On Tuesday, Scotrail told the BBC's Good Morning Scotland programme that its peak services won't return to pre-Covid levels, with only an additional 150 to be reintroduced in May. 

David Simpson, ScotRail service delivery director, said: “The introduction of some temporary changes to our timetable was important for our customers, providing a level of certainty during a challenging time.

“Those changes have allowed us to keep people moving across the country, and our staff worked flat out to run a safe and reliable railway in really difficult and continually changing circumstances.

“We still face significant challenges, with 150 staff absent, but with things improving, and restrictions across Scotland being relaxed, we are now able to safely reintroduce our full timetable of around 2,000 services a day.

“The pandemic is not over yet and we will still face some disruption due to staff absence, but we are confident of providing a reliable service for our customers.”

On Tuesday, he had told the BBC: "People's commuting habits are changing hugely.

"Most people who used to do five days a week to the office now say they are going to be doing two, three or four days of hybrid working.

"What we are doing is altering the travel patterns, but also reflecting the ways where people are travelling more, such as leisure, weekends shopping and so on."