Save Our Railway - Stranraer

[Penmorfa]

Free travel on HOWL in summer would be disastrous. I'm not saying that every train would be full and standing but, for example, last trip I did on thurs 9 aug on the mid morning Swan-Salop loaded to 60-70 on the single 153 for most of the way. Imagine if the freebies were allowed as well. And this is not THAT unusual in summer hence many services are pairs of 153s or 150. Great to see it full!

People over 60 are not 'freebies'

 

[Argosy]

Well now here's a thing; I've just been told by the Development Manager of SAYLSA (google it) that the offers ARE available from Stranraer, and have had some success from that end of the line.

It also appears that in various places around the web and on stations, 3 different lots of publicity all saying differing things are available! A shambles.
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Not really; coach 70 mins, train around 80 mins. Road can be a bit quicker by car, depending on how many HGV's you follow at 40mph.

Hmm being a little selective there. Going north the Stena coach will always beat the train (by ten minutes to Glasgow). Going south the train and bus would beat the Stena bus by nearly 45 minutes. Overall rail is quicker and everyone bar about 4 people think the Stena bus idea is nuts!

Those four people include one consultant, and 3 from TS and ScotRail. And so do the public.

In 2010-11 60k people used the train who were ferry passengers. Now that number is around a third of that. The coach is a joke. I live there. I know.
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Sorry, mental block when I wrote that - I was comparing Stranraer to Ayr by road/rail as in the "old" days. You are of course correct that another 30 minutes or so would be needed to travel from STR to Loch Ryan port if rail/taxi is used.

Are you cycling or Mo Farrow? No 15 mins at most in a coach from Loch Ryan Port (Stena), 10 mins from Cairnryan (P&O)
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In my view the Stranraer line will struggle without the ferry traffic, and the Stena coach will struggle to compete with the direct coach from Glasgow to Cairnryan. e.g. for the 3.30pm the coach leaves 1 hour later from the bus station!

It would be really good if a solution could be found to provide a decent service for Stranraer area residents and those who like to travel to Northen Ireland by train via Scotland. Unless someone gets all parties to work together the line will probably be lost in 2 - 5 years.

Sensible conclusion. What non locals don't realise is the market. The market is 75% locals and the vast majority of the rest was ferry traffic. To waive this away is total and utter madness. Only an idiot would have done this.

But Stena don't care. They have got away with murder. Wrapped the local politicians around their finger and stuck two fingers up. The former terminal is a dump and Stena are blocking any community initiative to do anything about it. The local Council showed the utmost incompetence in not tying Stena down when they finally decided to go to Loch Ryan Port.

What is needed is 6 trains a day Stranraer - Ayr with 5 going on to Glasgow/Edinburgh and one to Kilmarnock. Journey time Stranraer - Glasgow 2h 08min without unnecessary pathing. You can't do that by road unless you are speeding.

The A77 is a terrrible road. Cairnryan - Girvan is 40 minutes in a car and 35 minutes from there to Ayr. There are only 3 places you can overtake between Girvan and Ayr, climbing out of Turnberry, Crossraguel Abbey and just north of Maybole if you are lucky.

On top of that 9 or so Girvan - Ayr - Kilmarnocks with an Ayr - Kilmarnock shuttle to tie in with the Stranraer's. 3 units in the peak, 4 in the off peak, better service = more punters. Job done.

Will ScotRail/TS listen? No. It is arguable that they want to shut it. They haven't a clue. A party in a brewery comes to mind.
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Well so much for promoting the reduced fare offering; on checking both National Rail Journey Planner and Scotrail's own website for fares STR-GLC return (or GLC-STR) tomorrow, the promotional fares are not showing - how stupid is that!

Or is it part of a cunning plan to show there is no demand..............

Possibly. Having been involved in this it is a classic case of sleight of hand.

Now the obvious thing is to put details of all promotions on the fares website hmm. Yes of course. If Asda were selling Whiskas cat food at £2 a box instead of £3.65 you'd expect the box to be marked down or a 'rollback' I think they call it. Not shown fleetingly on a moving advert and the only way you can access it is by moving the balloons out of the way in the kiddies corner and there it is in a boxed leaflet set!

One suspects the "we don't wish to encourage abstraction" comes to mind.

Observations show a poor take up to Stranraer and a booming (500-600%) from Stranraer.

It could be argued that if you made it free to go to Stranraer you wouldn't get much more in the way of passengers, but if you reduce the fares from Stranraer you have a winner - and lower CO2 emissions!

 

[Cable Car]

The A77 isnt as bad as it used to be due to all the improvements and there are plans to provide more guaranteed overtaking opportunities including the long awaited Maybole bypass and other schemes south of Turnberry.

Maybole bypass. . . now that would truly put us in the 21st Century.

 

[kylemore]

Will ScotRail/TS listen? No. It is arguable that they want to shut it. They haven't a clue. A party in a brewery comes to mind.
!

First Group being the Sharks that they are will make sure that even if it carried zero punters it would still be "profitable" to them. In the "Privatised" Railway there is NO RISK carried by the "Private" firms which Leech off the system.
All RISK is borne by the Taxpayers who are delivered up to the private interests by politicians who have long since been "Squared" (all of them - Labour/Tory/Lib Dem/SNP whatever).