The Scottish Government has announced it will begin procurement to replace its Intercity High Speed Train (HST) fleet, which operates a number of routes to and from the North-east.
Concerns were raised about the safeness of the HST fleet following the fatal Carmont derailment near Stonehaven in 2020, which killed three men.
An investigation into the incident found the trains “pre-date a number of modern standards that are relevant to train behaviour in derailments and collisions” but were known to have a “good safety standard”.
The Intercity fleet currently operates routes between Aberdeen, Glasgow, Edinburgh and Inverness.
ScotRail will lead the procurement on behalf of Transport Scotland.
The Cabinet Secretary for Transport, Fiona Hyslop, said: "Resilient, reliable ScotRail services are key to encouraging more people to choose to travel by train rather than car, to cutting our transport emissions and to helping to move people around Scotland for work, leisure and learning. That is why we must build on our investment in Scotland’s railway infrastructure by investing in the services and trains which connect our key cities.
"Over 4 million passenger journeys were made on InterCity trains in the last year. We want to maintain and where possible, increase that number choosing to go by train between Scotland’s cities.
"We want to replace the current Intercity fleet with trains which provide more comfort and accessibility for passengers on these routes.
"This planned investment will ensure the reliability of our Intercity routes for the long-term, will reduce emissions from Intercity services and will support our efforts to decarbonise Scotland’s railways."
The government confirmed a contract notice on the announcement is expected to be published in the coming weeks.