Huge Expansion in Scotrail services planned

[iain-j]

My first reaction to seeing this was that the most glaringly issue is that there is no mention of services being improved in the East Lothian area. We keep getting told that the North Berwick service is having longer platforms fitted and eventually will have the additional stock to use them, but it needs to be more frequent than it is currently.
The Dunbar service is something that needs hugely improved and hopefully the re-openings of Reston and East Linton will create a more frequent service, though I think this service needs to stop at Longniddry as well because travel from any of the North Berwick line stations between Wallyford and Drem require you to travel either to Musselburgh or Waverley to change trains onto a Dunbar service. I suggested Longniddry because if the Haddington line was to reopen this would be the first station that all East Lothian services meet allowing for good interchange.

My other reaction was to the headlines in newspapers such as "Railway Revolution" which should read "Railway Evolution". A real railway revolution would be committing to the opening of the proposed stations and lines that are clearly wanted and not playing on the fact that they are getting rolling stock that should have been ordered years ago.

 

[Carntyne]

My other reaction was to the headlines in newspapers such as "Railway Revolution" which should read "Railway Evolution". A real railway revolution would be committing to the opening of the proposed stations and lines that are clearly wanted and not playing on the fact that they are getting rolling stock that should have been ordered years ago.

They have committed to reopening the stations (although delayed until 2018 due to lack of rolling stock) I thought? Not everything can be done at once. North Berwick's platform extension's just been completed, so work is taking place.

East Lothian will benefit hugely from the introduction of the new 385 fleet also.

 

[Altnabreac]

My first reaction to seeing this was that the most glaringly issue is that there is no mention of services being improved in the East Lothian area. We keep getting told that the North Berwick service is having longer platforms fitted and eventually will have the additional stock to use them, but it needs to be more frequent than it is currently.
The Dunbar service is something that needs hugely improved and hopefully the re-openings of Reston and East Linton will create a more frequent service, though I think this service needs to stop at Longniddry as well because travel from any of the North Berwick line stations between Wallyford and Drem require you to travel either to Musselburgh or Waverley to change trains onto a Dunbar service. I suggested Longniddry because if the Haddington line was to reopen this would be the first station that all East Lothian services meet allowing for good interchange.

My other reaction was to the headlines in newspapers such as "Railway Revolution" which should read "Railway Evolution". A real railway revolution would be committing to the opening of the proposed stations and lines that are clearly wanted and not playing on the fact that they are getting rolling stock that should have been ordered years ago.

You want to have a look at the Scotland Route Study - Draft for Consultation here:
https://www.networkrail.co.uk/Scotland-Route-Study-Draft-for-Consultation.pdf

It identifies as one of the CP6 or CP7 options two alternative interventions for funders on the ECML to enable more trains in East Lothian.

North Berwick services are forecast to be over 100 per cent of seating capacity in the morning peak hour by the time they reach Edinburgh Waverley. The East Coast Main Line (ECML) runs east and south from Edinburgh Waverley, with a number of local station stops before Drem Junction and the North Berwick branch line. Predicted passenger demand in 2023/24 indicates that North Berwick services will exceed 100 per cent of seating capacity (assumed to be six carriage trains) in the peak hour by the time they reach Edinburgh Waverley. This does not exceed the current ScotRail Franchise commitment of passengers standing for more than 10 minutes. However, to improve the passenger experience trains could be lengthened to provide additional seats. To facilitate this, a number of small enhancements to stations and rail infrastructure would be required.

The connectivity Conditional Outputs for 2043 propose an increase in the number of stopping services in the Dunbar and Drem to Waverley corridor. Therefore, in the longer term, enhancements to enable train lengthening may prove abortive, as longer trains are not then needed if increased capacity has been provided by the additional services. At this stage it may offer better value for money to consider meeting the end of CP6 demand through delivery of the
interventions detailed on the following page.

The 2 options are:

Drem station on loops

Purpose - To permit local services to stop on the loops at Drem so that long distance non-stopping services can pass on the mainline at this location. In addition all North Berwick to Edinburgh Waverley services would call at platform 1. This will increase capacity on the East Coast Main Line.

Technical Description - This option consists of the provision of a new Drem platform 1 on the Up Passenger Loop and a sub option of a new platform 2 on the Down Passenger Loop at Drem junction.

Indicative Costs - £50-100m;

Prioritisation assessment - To meet forecast demand on the North Berwick corridor by the end of CP6 either the Drem Platform or Wallyford to
Prestonpans four tracking option should be considered.

Notes - It should be noted that the Drem intervention does not facilitate the looping of longer freight services. Further timetable development will be undertaken prior to final publication.

Wallyford to Prestonpans Four tracking

Purpose - To allow local passenger and freight services on new loops between Wallyford and Prestonpans so long distance non-stopping services can overtake slower trains on this section of the ECML. This intervention will substantially increase timetable flexibility and facilitate additional services, as well as providing regulating capacity between Drem Junction and Millerhill.

Technical Description - This option consists of the provision of two new tracks to form a passing loop via two new flat junctions at Wallyford and Prestonpans stations. Wallyford and Prestonpans stations would be relocated to the new loops.

Indicative Costs - £100-250m;

Prioritisation assessment - To meet forecast demand on the North Berwick corridor by the end of CP6 either the Drem Platform or Wallyford to
Prestonpans four tracking option should be considered.

Notes - This option offers greater ECML capacity improvement as the loops are significantly longer, compared with the Drem station onto loops option, which doesn’t offer freight looping capabilities. Further timetable development will be undertaken prior to final publication.

Both these interventions are newly developed by the Scotland Route Study so less likely to be shovel ready in 2019 to enable more services for East Lothian early in CP6.

Just because there is no change for East Lothian yet doesn't mean that it isn't a revolution or that it isn't in planning.

 

[edwin_m]

Three miles for £100M - if it was the railway it would be at least triple that cost. I think NR should contract for a sewer pipe and then run tracks through it when it's finished!

A sewer is basically just a big tube bored by a big machine and I've no doubt a railway tunnel of similar length would cost about that much on its own. It's the stations and other complicated bits, not to mention all the equipment in the tunnels, that contributes most of the cost.

 

[najaB]

A sewer is basically just a big tube bored by a big machine and I've no doubt a railway tunnel of similar length would cost about that much on its own. It's the stations and other complicated bits, not to mention all the equipment in the tunnels, that contributes most of the cost.

I know, I wasn't being serious. It does seem cheap though.

Having said that, there is a case to be made for boring a massive tunnel that's wide enough for stations so that there's no need to build station boxes. It also makes it trivial to construct additional stations later.

 

[Philip Phlopp]

I know, I wasn't being serious. It does seem cheap though.

Having said that, there is a case to be made for boring a massive tunnel that's wide enough for stations so that there's no need to build station boxes. It also makes it trivial to construct additional stations later.

The TBM for that would be too big to be of practical use, and would have some serious pressure, stress and cutting head centrifugal force issues.

 

[najaB]

The TBM for that would be too big to be of practical use, and would have some serious pressure, stress and cutting head centrifugal force issues.

It doesn't actually have to be *that* much wider than existing tunnels. As I understand it they bore a pair of single track tunnels that are wide enough for platforms and escalators/stairs to be added at any point along the length. The station itself (ticket office, etc) is built above.

 

[NotATrainspott]

The TBM for that would be too big to be of practical use, and would have some serious pressure, stress and cutting head centrifugal force issues.

Barcelona Line 9 is built this way, with one huge TBM boring out the entire two-track formation plus the space needed for stations. The concept is that the extra cost of a TBM being that large (including the need for spoil disposal) is less than the saving from not needing to build the stations manually. On this line the stations just require a shaft to be sunk to reach the tunnel.

I don't think this is how a cross-city tunnel would work in Glasgow. What could be done though is that the TBMs used for the tunnel would be large enough to also dig out the platform caverns as well. The increase in size isn't that enormous, as you can see here:

The total tunnelled length under Glasgow would be relatively small, especially if there were to be underground junctions. I think that the tunnel would need to link to the GSW line as well as the Paisley corridor, so a junction would be needed around Port Eglinton. A junction to the north would be needed for the split between the Cumbernauld and E&G routes. In total, the central section would only be a few kilometres long, so the extra cost of a larger TBM would be much smaller than on a longer line like Crossrail 1. The tunnels between the junction caverns and the surface could be built to a smaller diameter, and if they're ready first they could be used for spoil disposal from the larger TBMs launched directly from the junction caverns.

One of the great advantages I see with this approach is that the cost of building a second station under Glasgow would drop significantly. I think it would be a good idea to have two stations located at the far ends of Central and Queen Street, so that the city centre would naturally expand northwards and southwards.

 

[iain-j]

You want to have a look at the Scotland Route Study - Draft for Consultation here:
https://www.networkrail.co.uk/Scotland-Route-Study-Draft-for-Consultation.pdf

It identifies as one of the CP6 or CP7 options two alternative interventions for funders on the ECML to enable more trains in East Lothian.



The 2 options are:





Both these interventions are newly developed by the Scotland Route Study so less likely to be shovel ready in 2019 to enable more services for East Lothian early in CP6.

Just because there is no change for East Lothian yet doesn't mean that it isn't a revolution or that it isn't in planning.

I had read the route study but the worrying problem is that their is so much housing going up in East Lothian, especially around Musselburgh and Wallyford that these enhancements may never happen. The area of land just north of Wallyford station has had a planning application put in for housing and given East Lothian Councils's insistence that everything must be shoe horned into this side of the county it's more than likely this will be granted permission.
At first glance it doesn't appear that the plans are taking into any account of what Network Rail have suggested or are even aware of it. I would hazard a guess that if the quad tracking and relocating of the station was still possible there would be no room to expand the park and ride facility that exists as all the spare plots nearby are now being built on. Houses get built faster than railways and 2019 is a long time away in that context.

 

[Mordac]

Three miles for £100M - if it was the railway it would be at least triple that cost. I think NR should contract for a sewer pipe and then run tracks through it when it's finished!

Or the Glasgow Subway as it's also known.

 

[overthewater]

So with all of this, is there any word on the Fife loco hauled services? They can't possibly survive this, right?

Why not? Those loco services were only surpose to last a few year, and then it got extended and extended and extended...

No one has been able to come up with planned to sort out the overcrowding on the route without the loco.

 

[Altnabreac]

The total tunnelled length under Glasgow would be relatively small, especially if there were to be underground junctions. I think that the tunnel would need to link to the GSW line as well as the Paisley corridor, so a junction would be needed around Port Eglinton. A junction to the north would be needed for the split between the Cumbernauld and E&G routes. In total, the central section would only be a few kilometres long, so the extra cost of a larger TBM would be much smaller than on a longer line like Crossrail 1. The tunnels between the junction caverns and the surface could be built to a smaller diameter, and if they're ready first they could be used for spoil disposal from the larger TBMs launched directly from the junction caverns.

One of the great advantages I see with this approach is that the cost of building a second station under Glasgow would drop significantly. I think it would be a good idea to have two stations located at the far ends of Central and Queen Street, so that the city centre would naturally expand northwards and southwards.

I think any solution would be likely to use more conventional TBMs given we are talking about a full heavy rail cross-section.

At the north end I'm not convinced any sort of underground junction is required. If surfacing in the Sighthill / Keppochhill / Cowlairs area it should be possible for Cumbernauld trains to diverge easily enough at Cowlairs.

On the south side I think there are sufficient potential services to run through the tunnel from the Paisley corridor so I would have a simple version of the tunnel surfacing around the West St - Shields Road area.

I'm not 100% convinced that there need to be 2 City Centre stations, but if there were then my feeling would be that the regeneration potential would be better to have one at Central and then one further East either around the High St area, or my preferred option at Cathedral / Townhead to unlock development potential in the east end and better links to the GRI and Strathclyde University.

In the south to my mind an even better option than Shields Road would be to tunnel west with additional stations at The Hydro, Govan (for Subway to West End) and the QEII Hospital (Old Southern). An advantage of this option is that you can surface in the undeveloped land at Arkleston and can have grade separation here directly onto 4 track alignment for Ayrshire / Inverclyde without any conflicting movements.

At present there are only 11tph through Paisley Gilmour Street:
4tph Ayr
1tph Ardrossan
1tph Largs
4tph Gourock
1tph Wemyss Bay

However the Scotland Route Study is proposing 14tph with extra Wemyss Bay, Largs and Kilwinning services and if you threw in 2tph to Bridge of Weir and 4tph to the Airport you'd have 20tph which would be perfect for the tunneled section.

 

[Mordac]

Why not? Those loco services were only surpose to last a few year, and then it got extended and extended and extended...

No one has been able to come up with planned to sort out the overcrowding on the route without the loco.

Because the plan mentioned extra capacity on Fife services. I don't really have a preference one way or the other, but since there was no mention of them, and the Franchise documents that I've read also leave their future ambiguous, I was wondering if anyone might have any insight.

 

[Philip Phlopp]

It doesn't actually have to be *that* much wider than existing tunnels. As I understand it they bore a pair of single track tunnels that are wide enough for platforms and escalators/stairs to be added at any point along the length. The station itself (ticket office, etc) is built above.

That's not really a station box, that's only providing a series of tunnels wide enough for an acceptable width of platform to be constructued. CrossRail isn't far off doing that, it's providing acceptable evacuation walkways.

When you were talking about station boxes, I thought you wanted something the size of the Kings Cross St Pancras station box created by a simply enormous TBM.

 

[NotATrainspott]

I think any solution would be likely to use more conventional TBMs given we are talking about a full heavy rail cross-section.

I'm not advocating having a single >13m diameter TBM to do both tunnels. I'm suggesting that instead of having two standard TBMs dig the tunnels and then the platform caverns are widened by hand, the two TBMs would bore out the platform cavern diameter all the way from start to finish. If there are junction caverns at the north and south ends of the core route, then the total length of platform-cavern-diameter tunnel would only be a few kilometres and much less than an order of magnitude longer than the length of the platforms anyway. The tunnels from the junction caverns to the surface can then be the standard diameter for new EMU tunnels (e.g. Crossrail or the Canal Tunnels).

At the north end I'm not convinced any sort of underground junction is required. If surfacing in the Sighthill / Keppochhill / Cowlairs area it should be possible for Cumbernauld trains to diverge easily enough at Cowlairs.

On the south side I think there are sufficient potential services to run through the tunnel from the Paisley corridor so I would have a simple version of the tunnel surfacing around the West St - Shields Road area.

I'm not 100% convinced that there need to be 2 City Centre stations, but if there were then my feeling would be that the regeneration potential would be better to have one at Central and then one further East either around the High St area, or my preferred option at Cathedral / Townhead to unlock development potential in the east end and better links to the GRI and Strathclyde University.

In the south to my mind an even better option than Shields Road would be to tunnel west with additional stations at The Hydro, Govan (for Subway to West End) and the QEII Hospital (Old Southern). An advantage of this option is that you can surface in the undeveloped land at Arkleston and can have grade separation here directly onto 4 track alignment for Ayrshire / Inverclyde without any conflicting movements.

At present there are only 11tph through Paisley Gilmour Street:
4tph Ayr
1tph Ardrossan
1tph Largs
4tph Gourock
1tph Wemyss Bay

However the Scotland Route Study is proposing 14tph with extra Wemyss Bay, Largs and Kilwinning services and if you threw in 2tph to Bridge of Weir and 4tph to the Airport you'd have 20tph which would be perfect for the tunneled section.

What you're suggesting would be more of a metro tunnel. I don't think that's as likely as a tunnel designed for more regional services. My tunnel would be optimised for flows like Kilmarnock to Dunblane or Ayr to Edinburgh, the likes of which will be best served by a 6 or 8 car 380/385 at standard frequencies. East Kilbride, Barrhead and Kilmarnock provide these sorts of flows, so it wouldn't be a good idea to exclude them from the tunnel. Even if the number of services north and south of the river wouldn't be balanced it wouldn't be a problem, as the tunnel may as well be filled up to capacity and building a turnback or two on the surface wouldn't cost much.

Travel within Glasgow city itself (including the Anniesland and Cathcart Circle lines) would be better done with trams and tram-trains. Since Glasgow city isn't enormous, heavy rail isn't as useful at getting people from one part to another as it is getting people from the outer suburbs and dormitory communities into the city. Trams and tram-trains would be a more effective use of money at regenerating areas of the city as they can replace buses on short distance flows within areas as well as providing them with better links to the city centre.

 

[Class 170101]

Has Glasgow Queen Street High Level got enough capacity to accommodate all these extra services to Dundee, Cumbernauld and Edinburgh?

 

[Altnabreac]

Has Glasgow Queen Street High Level got enough capacity to accommodate all these extra services to Dundee, Cumbernauld and Edinburgh?

Maybe. It's only an increase of 2tph from what was planned previously.

If not then the 2tph Cumbernauld terminators just get diverted to low level instead.

 

[najaB]

When you were talking about station boxes, I thought you wanted something the size of the Kings Cross St Pancras station box created by a simply enormous TBM.

Ah, okay - I see how you could read it that way. That *would* be ridiculous.

As NotATrainspott's post showed there isn't a traditional station box at all - just platforms and escalators to a station above. Depending on how deep the tunnel is the station could be a traditional underground box, or it could be a surface structure.

 

[Altnabreac]

What you're suggesting would be more of a metro tunnel. I don't think that's as likely as a tunnel designed for more regional services. My tunnel would be optimised for flows like Kilmarnock to Dunblane or Ayr to Edinburgh, the likes of which will be best served by a 6 or 8 car 380/385 at standard frequencies. East Kilbride, Barrhead and Kilmarnock provide these sorts of flows, so it wouldn't be a good idea to exclude them from the tunnel. Even if the number of services north and south of the river wouldn't be balanced it wouldn't be a problem, as the tunnel may as well be filled up to capacity and building a turnback or two on the surface wouldn't cost much.

Travel within Glasgow city itself (including the Anniesland and Cathcart Circle lines) would be better done with trams and tram-trains. Since Glasgow city isn't enormous, heavy rail isn't as useful at getting people from one part to another as it is getting people from the outer suburbs and dormitory communities into the city. Trams and tram-trains would be a more effective use of money at regenerating areas of the city as they can replace buses on short distance flows within areas as well as providing them with better links to the city centre.

The routes are metro routes really though. RER / Crossrail type routes anyway.

Ayr - Edinburgh is similar distances and times as Reading to Shenfield.

What it needs to serve are the existing and future employment and leisure areas of Glasgow that drive travel demand on these routes.

They are:
GRI / Strathclyde Uni / Merchant City
City Centre / Broomielaw
BBC / STV/ SECC
West End / Glasgow Uni
QEII Hospital

So my proposed line serves 4 directly and 1 via Underground from Govan.

It's following the Crossrail model of taking people directly to the growing new employment sites instead of a city centre station and then change to bus/tram/subway.

 

[clc]

.

I'm not 100% convinced that there need to be 2 City Centre stations, but if there were then my feeling would be that the regeneration potential would be better to have one at Central and then one further East either around the High St area, or my preferred option at Cathedral / Townhead to unlock development potential in the east end and better links to the GRI and Strathclyde University.
.

The large surface car park directly in front of the hospital would be ideal for a cut and cover station.

 

[Altnabreac]

The large surface car park directly in front of the hospital would be ideal for a cut and cover station.

Exactly the site that springs to mind. Townhead itself is also ripe for regeneration with better transport links.

 

[NotATrainspott]

Ah, okay - I see how you could read it that way. That *would* be ridiculous.

As NotATrainspott's post showed there isn't a traditional station box at all - just platforms and escalators to a station above. Depending on how deep the tunnel is the station could be a traditional underground box, or it could be a surface structure.

I think the traditional idea of a 'station box' is when you end up with a large cuboid cut into the earth. All or most of the parts of the station are then built by adding floors and walls within this box. Examples would be Paddington Crossrail or Canary Wharf (Jubilee or Crossrail).

However, there are other 'boxes' being built elsewhere on the line as part of stations. At Tottenham Court Road, the escalators down to the Crossrail platforms are mostly within a box structure which extends down past the level of the running tunnels. A box like this is ideal when there's lots of services and accesses which will need to be taken down to platform and other intermediate levels.

I don't know what would happen with a Glasgow north-south tunnel. If there were only to be a single station located roughly equidistant between Central and Queen Street then it would most likely be the same design as Tottenham Court Road or Liverpool Street. Some buildings would be demolished completely to build shafts or boxes to provide access down to platform level. The ground floor would become a public access to the station and above it there would be over-site development to help recoup the cost. If there were to be two separate stations, these would be further out and it may be possible to completely demolish the surface buildings to build a full scale station box. I don't see it being impossible to knock down everything from Argyle Street to Clyde Street where the Howard Street MSCP is. A box at Queen Street would be harder, especially when there would be more elevation differences to contend with.

The routes are metro routes really though. RER / Crossrail type routes anyway.

Ayr - Edinburgh is similar distances and times as Reading to Shenfield.

What it needs to serve are the existing and future employment and leisure areas of Glasgow that drive travel demand on these routes.

They are:
GRI / Strathclyde Uni / Merchant City
City Centre / Broomielaw
BBC / STV/ SECC
West End / Glasgow Uni
QEII Hospital

So my proposed line serves 4 directly and 1 via Underground from Govan.

It's following the Crossrail model of taking people directly to the growing new employment sites instead of a city centre station and then change to bus/tram/subway.

Is Glasgow truly big enough for that to be warranted though? Remember that each of the areas served by Crossrail is like the whole of Glasgow city centre in terms of employment. Crossrail has to relieve the large amounts of existing public transport that already exists to connect up these areas, whereas in Glasgow there is almost no public transport on this corridor. The distances involved are small and there's enough space available on the surface that a tram would be very effective. Due to the design of the Glaswegian road network a tram from the city centre to the QEII Hospital could spend most of its time on more-or-less dedicated roads.

 

[clc]

Is Glasgow truly big enough for that to be warranted though? Remember that each of the areas served by Crossrail is like the whole of Glasgow city centre in terms of employment. Crossrail has to relieve the large amounts of existing public transport that already exists to connect up these areas, whereas in Glasgow there is almost no public transport on this corridor. The distances involved are small and there's enough space available on the surface that a tram would be very effective. Due to the design of the Glaswegian road network a tram from the city centre to the QEII Hospital could spend most of its time on more-or-less dedicated roads.

Why would you want a slow tramline with limited reach when you could have a 20tph heavy rail tunnel with direct services to around 100 stations across central Scotland? Let's think big.

 

[najaB]

Why would you want a slow tramline with limited reach when you could have a 20tph heavy rail tunnel with direct services to around 100 stations across central Scotland? Let's think big.

I suppose it depends on if your goal is to provide transport for Glasgow, or for people to come to Glasgow.

 

[NotATrainspott]

Why would you want a slow tramline with limited reach when you could have a 20tph heavy rail tunnel with direct services to around 100 stations across central Scotland? Let's think big.

Part of it is that the type of cross-city tunnel that I describe has been officially mentioned in the STPR and other sources.

It's also because I think a tram system will be needed in Glasgow regardless, and it would serve most of the areas being described here. The distances between these areas are relatively small, as is the number of people doing these journeys. The increase in cost of a more metro-like tunnel which would still be capable of taking 8x23m EMUs over a more simple north-south tunnel would be quite considerable, and that difference in cost could be spent in better ways. It would cost billions of pounds to add those extra stations, and those billions could be spent building a tram network for Glasgow that would have a significantly wider reach and benefit a much wider area of the city.

A fleshed out tram network connecting to a north-south city tunnel would do a huge amount of good. Yes, it might not be possible to get a train directly from your town to the SECC/Hydro for a concert but so what? That's true for the vast majority of places, and if there's a high frequency metro service you can change to that will take you from the train station to your final destination it'll be a better option than driving. Since we can't have everything, a metro tunnel would probably mean no tram network, and the added benefit of not needing to change to get to certain places would be outweighed by the loss from not having a rapid transit link to a much wider area in Glasgow.

My point about the road network is that trams could be given almost complete priority over most of their route. Trams which don't get caught in traffic are almost as fast as metro systems. There are many cities where traffic could not be tamed enough to make trams fast enough, and these are the ones which need expensive subway systems, but I feel Glasgow is just not one of them.

 

[170401]

Yaaawwwwwwnnnnnn

Do we really need to turn this into yet another boring crossrail debate?

 

[Altnabreac]

I'm willing to bet the one thing that will never get funded by the current Scottish Government is a new tram network.

Beyond that I suspect a 1-2 station north south tunnel is more likely than an RER type tunnel albeit less useful.

 

[nanstallon]

Good news, but let's be even more ambitious and restore some routes that were mistakenly closed in the 60s - Dumfries to Stranraer, and the rest of the Waverley line seem the most obvious. Scotland was particularly badly hit by the Beeching Plan.

Scotland has already shown the way with Galashiels. It can be done!

 

[NotATrainspott]

Good news, but let's be even more ambitious and restore some routes that were mistakenly closed in the 60s - Dumfries to Stranraer, and the rest of the Waverley line seem the most obvious. Scotland was particularly badly hit by the Beeching Plan.

Scotland has already shown the way with Galashiels. It can be done!

Altnabreac will now come in with his golden rules of reopenings and point out that there's never going to be a business case for reopning Dumfries to Stranraer. How much would it cost, and how many people would use it? The Borders route reopened because it would allow Midlothian and the Borders access to employment in Edinburgh. Access to employment in Glasgow and Edinburgh is the justification for all the reopenings in Scotland, something that Dumfries to Stranraer wouldn't do at all.

The way that Transport Scotland plans capital projects is that they focus on the outcome they want, not just a technical detail. For instance, if they looked at south west Scotland they would identify increased access to employment in Glasgow as being one of the key goals. Then they would look to see what projects would deliver that aim, including both rail and road projects. In this case, the idea most likely to go ahead would be to electrify from Ayr to Girvan and extend one of the Ayr express services every hour. Electrification and linespeed improvements (where possible) on the GSW line would be another likely outcome, so that a Dumfries-Glasgow commute would be bearable. Since the planning process doesn't set out technical solutions first, such as re-opening a certain railway line, it leaves them open to new ideas. For instance, it might be found that the best way to speed up Dumfries-Glasgow journeys would be to build a chord between Lockerbie and Dumfries and run a WCML service. Another option could be to improve the connecting service to Carlisle and then have people change there onto existing and future express services up to Glasgow and Edinburgh.

 

[najaB]

Altnabreac will now come in with his golden rules of reopenings and point out that there's never going to be a business case for reopning Dumfries to Stranraer.

You don't even need the golden rules - a pair of eyes and a little thought should be enough to tell that it ain't gonna happen. Were the route still open you'd have trouble making the case not to close it, never mind making the case for hundreds of millions of pounds to reinstate it. As it happens, this was all thrashed out a short while ago.
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---

Good news, but let's be even more ambitious and restore some routes that were mistakenly closed in the 60s - Dumfries to Stranraer, and the rest of the Waverley line seem the most obvious.

Erm... rail to Fraserburgh/Peterhead and reopening (un-out of using) Levenmouth would be higher up my list of priorities. Even the Scottish Midland Junction Railway would make more sense.