By Alexander Cruickshanks

Matthew Wilson must be at the University of Glasgow, by 9am every day to be able to learn and work toward the future. He travels from his home in East Kilbride, using the trains to and from Glasgow Central. But now, for 16 weeks, his daily routine has been skewed. The line from East Kilbride to Glasgow Central is under maintenance and will not be in operation due to a £140m electrical revamp.

These changes in the railway will affect the hundreds, if not thousands of people who rely on the train everyday for their travel, like Matthew. He is having to make adjustments that will affect his life. In terms of getting to his place of education, Matthew said: “I’m either going to sacrifice my sleeping schedule, to wake up even earlier to get the bus into town or I’m going to have to drive to town and park nearby.”

And with travel impacts, there is always a financial impact. Matthew works part-time and is in full time education. As is, he has to manage his money. The glamorous life of a student. But these changes will cost him more.

He said: “It is going to be more money spent due to travel costs, like fuel for my car and parking in town.

“I usually do my assignments when I get in, at night and I go to the gym. I might not be able to that anymore if I need to get to sleep earlier. So, all in all, it’s not great.”

Waking up at the crack of dawn to get on a cold, damp bus, packed tightly with people in the cabin like floors. Many people would say a bus is similar to a train. And that’s true. If you take away speed, warmth, comfort and a lack of mould. Then there’s the smells of condensation, someone eating their tuna and egg sandwich or the guy chugging a bottle of Buckfast at 7:30 in the morning .Some may say the bus isn’t a worthy substitute.

Robert Calderwood, also an EK Local, attends the University of Strathclyde for Naval Architecture and he is in a similar position to Matthew. He uses the trains every day to go to university.

Robert said: “ I will try to get the number six bus into the city centre. It will have a financial impact on me because it will take ages for me to get home from university now. It means I can’t work as much at nights. It’s a pain.”

So for Robert the bus is the only option. . Many people will be impacted during this period, just like Matthew and Robert. I contacted Scotrail for comment and got two separate responses.

One pointed me towards their generic press release which said: “To keep customers moving during the works, ScotRail will operate a rail replacement bus service that will serve most of the stations on the route and, at locations where rail replacement is not available, the train operator has detailed alternative transport options to support travel.”.