SCOTRAIL has confirmed that more seats will be added to key services during the Edinburgh Fringe Festival.

Extra carriages will be added to existing services to and from the capital in preparation for the estimated two million festivalgoers expected to descend on Edinburgh this month.

David Simpson, ScotRail's service delivery director, said: “This year’s Edinburgh Festivals are set to be special as they celebrate their 75th anniversary, and we’re thrilled to be able to, once again, play our part in making it a success.

"We’ll be doing all we can to help showcase Edinburgh, and Scotland, to the world, including running extra late-night services and adding more seats to trains to get people to and from the events.

"Our trains are going be extremely busy, so we’re encouraging everyone visiting the capital to plan their journey in advance, and to buy their train tickets before they board using our mTicket system on our mobile app."

"Festivalgoers should be aware of the potential of significant disruption during the festivals due to planned strike action by Network Rail members of the RMT trade union. We’ll let customers know our plans and travel advice in the coming weeks, should this planned strike action go ahead."

While capacity will be increased, there is still a risk of disruption as The RMT have announced strike action for Thursday, August 18 and Saturday, August 20 due to pay disputes with Network Rail. Despite Scotrail staff not being involved in this dispute, there will be knock-on effects as Scottish Network Rail staff will be taking planned action.

Customers can expect disruption on Wednesday, August 17, Friday, August 19 and Sunday, August 21 as they too will be affected by the strikes should they go ahead