Recent content by Bruce Warren

Are they going to upgrade private farm crossings as well, or just the public highway ones. There are quite a few of the former between Ayr and Stranraer. I know they already have user worked gates, but it would be nice to have extra protection.

Officially it was to reduce journey time- that's certainly how Stena spun it but it's a falsehood in my opinion. It's to save fuel and lower costs. The journey is indeed shorter, but the new big ferries actually take 15 minutes longer than the HSS did. Aside from my gripe with Stena I have one...

From time to time a rail bridge/tunnel from Portpatrick to Larne is proposed, but nothing comes of it. Personally I suspect the cost of any such bridge/tunnel would far outstrip the cost of regauging the track from Larne to Belfast to standard gauge.

There's a news item on the Transport Scotland website today that they are going to be dropping the Stranraer-Ayr and Glasgow return rail fares during August and September as a promotion. It'll be interesting to see what happens.

It's due for ERTMS in 2018, so I imagine the signal boxes might be doomed in any event. As an aside, during the volvanic ash incident, they put extra carriages on the line. A friend of mine has a photo of a six car unit at Stranraer. Not that it's likely but if the airlines were to experience...

The time penalty for a double back via stranraer as opposed to a direct bus to Ayr is 20 minutes according to Swestrans, so it's easy to see why the direct bus might be more attractive to the passenger on the go. However for some passengers a long bus journey might well prove less comfortable...

Timetabling seems to be difficult to sort out, although I understand Transport Scotland have said they are keeping an eye on it. What that means in practice I have no idea. Last year Scotrail wanted to move the early Stranraer - Glasgow train back an hour to arrive before 9 and allow commuting...

My understanding is that the plan is to build a smaller station with heated waiting room, ticket office and toilet near the site of the now demolished sealink waiting room. Unlike the shelter on the up line that Barrhill has to put up with, it would be a small but real building. Money from the...