A stretch of railway line between Kilmarnock and Dumfries has reopened after more than a month of being closed.

Storm Ciara had battered the route with 90mph winds and torrential downpours back in February.

The gales and wet weather caused the nearby River Nith to erode the embankment, which created a landslip at the site on February 10, cancelling all trains scheduled to run on the route for the past month.

The damage required teams to be onsite 24 hours a day, seven days a week to repair. Examination of the landslip confirmed that over 1,700 tonnes of land had shifted under a 50 metre stretch.

Michael Matheson, Cabinet Secretary for Transport, Infrastructure and Connectivity visited to review progress and to thank the team on site last week.

He said: “I very much appreciate the work that Network Rail has been undertaking here as it is a difficult job in a very limited amount of space and I thank everyone who has worked through horrible weather conditions to get the job done.”

Tom Podger, Network Rail’s project manager for the reinstatement work said: “Flooding caused by Storm Ciara has led to significant damage beneath the track and we needed to rebuild the supporting embankment before reinstating and re-opening the line.

“The landslip is located in a difficult location above the river and the remoteness of the site presented a challenge in getting equipment and materials to the site.

“We have moved 6000 tonnes of rock into place to both rebuild the embankment and to form a protective barrier.”