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Not any more - the old car pound is now being developed into flats. The new car pound is down in Inch Park, near Cameron Toll.

The owner isn't doing it out of spite: he's trying to maximise gains, and minimise losses, within the limits of the law. Permission to repair the building is one thing but what really matters is the funding. Part of the reason we end up in situations like this is that owners think there's a...

https://www.railforums.co.uk/threads/ayr-station-hotel-save-britains-heritage-could-rescue-building.229408/page-3 Derelict buildings like this might not be set on fire deliberately, but unless the landowner is actively paying the very large amount of money needed for 24/7 security, it is...

It's a very interesting lecture. I think it's mostly a summary of things already released to the public but it focuses on the overarching story of decarbonisation and improving railway finances. A very important point is that rail decarbonisation isn't really about reducing rail emissions, but...

The plan is to get battery EMUs to allow services to switch from diesel before the wiring is complete. The Fife wires will radiate from Thornton Junction out towards Kirkcaldy, Lochgelly, Ladybank and Leven. I don't know if some wires around Perth and Dundee will be needed to allow BEMUs to...

Yes, it's very easy to campaign for listing (<cough>Cumbernauld Town Centre<cough>) as an abstract idea that will magically save a building. It is much harder to campaign for a building to be preserved and maintained with taxpayer funds (through a Rube Goldberg machine of grants and heritage...

I don't have a problem with taxpayer money going to building conservation. The challenge is that it's a zero-sum game, and the funding simply isn't and won't ever be there to preserve everything. It's easy to start up a local campaigning group with the ear of local councillors, MPs and other...

There are a few issues here, and well-meaning campaigners can make the situation worse rather than better. Too many people don't really understand the economics of buildings and have somewhat magical ideas about where any funds to preserve them may be coming from. The Victorians built the...

Another point maybe worth raising is that the southern wing stands in the way of any extensions to the bay platforms. If the network is going to be increasingly based on longer EMU sets, it might be quite useful to have bay platforms capable of taking 8x23m sets.

So the lesson here is that can-kicking doesn't actually work. The building has been doomed for years. There is no economic case to restore it, because Ayr isn't a strong enough market for hotels for a sympathetic restoration to be possible without a huge investment of public money. That public...

Car manufacturers will do whatever is most profitable. The industrial capacity dedicated to producing internal combustion engines is going to fade away fairly rapidly, because no one will want to build a new car engine plant. The end of ICEs will probably involve old models produced for longer...

A real problem is that these rural routes suitable for hydrogen represent such a small addressable market for hydrogen vehicle tech that it might still not be worth it. Diesel works today because there are huge economies of scale. There's no difficulty getting diesel train parts for the Far...

I don't see the developers of the business park being unhappy if the Welsh Government wanted to safeguard a route through it for the Metro. Having more jobs there wouldn't hurt the viability of an airport spur at all. The number of airport passengers switching to use the Metro would likely be...

If there's no plan to use pure EMUs on the route then it doesn't seem that important to get it wired up. It'll happen someday when it's worthwhile filling in electrification gaps, or if the Glasgow Metro plans mean big changes to service patterns. It's not really a problem if infrastructure...

Some of this touches on the real economic value of park-and-ride stations. How much extra revenue does ScotRail actually get from providing 100 parking spaces? An annual season ticket from Dyce to Aberdeen is £720. 100 spaces * £720 is £72k a year. Wikipedia says passenger numbers have been...

One of the first things, but not the first. Actually being able to get to their destination, and getting there quickly, is more important than having a seat. Providing seats is a luxury we can only afford when we aren't subject to other major constraints. On a major route corridor like Leith...

Why would that be helpful? The DLR can only be driverless because the whole thing is in a controlled environment. There are level crossings along the route to the Airport, and the fields near Ingliston will fill up with new developments and reduce the isolation of the tram. Seats aren't the...

In isolation that would make sense but if something approaching full electrification will happen for Fife, then I'm not so sure. Why would you keep a tiny subfleet of proper battery EMUs around just for the Tweedbank runs once normal* EMUs can do Fife/Dundee/Perth runs? Some degree of...

Redeveloping Central Garage isn't necessarily an economic slam-dunk. It is useful to have a depot near the city centre so that buses and drivers can start and end their shifts in the city centre too. Forcing all the buses out to somewhere else, presumably on or near the bypass, means adding on a...

There really isn't anything wrong with battery technology removing the need for 100% electrification. For the sake of a lumpier power draw and a bit more mass and cost for each train, you avoid the need to wire up every metre of track an electric train might ever need to visit. 100% completion...