Let's try applying
@Altnabreac's 'Four Rules of Rail Reopening' to the Callander Line suggestion.
Here are the Four Rules:
1) Serve a population of 10,000+
2) 60 minutes (75 at a push) journey time of a major employment centre
3) Extant or mainly unobstructed trackbed
4) Ability to extend an existing service so more terminal capacity is not required
1). As we've established, population is not high enough. Together, Callander, Doune and Deanston have a combined population of 5,000 at most, which is only halfway there. As most of the new housing in Stirlingshire is around the Stirling/Bannockburn/Bridge of Allan area, it seems unlikely that expansion of the former three settlements will come any time soon.
2). On the previous thread, a total journey time of 75 minutes from Edinburgh to Callander was suggested, so this suggestion scrapes through that category at a push. I imagine that journey times to Glasgow Queen Street would be slightly shorter.
3). The cycleway shows that countryside trackbed is extant. However, it has also been established on this thread that new alignments would be necessary through the three towns, where housing and roads have encroached onto the old trackbed.
4). This one is fairly easy to solve - the powers that be could extend the Edinburgh-Dunblane terminators.
So we've probably got one-and-a-half out of four at most. The one thing that
@Altnabreac's rules doesn't account for is tourism; although this can never be guaranteed, it is possible to factor in, so perhaps we're 50% of the way there if we're being optimistic.
Here is a list of projects in Scotland that would pass each of the criteria stated above:
Levenmouth
Grangemouth
Bridge of Weir
Kincardine
The following would each pass three of the four criteria:
Hawick (loss of alignment through Melrose)
Haddington & Tranent (loss of trackbed)
St Andrews (lack of services to extend)
Buchan & Formartine (lack of services to extend)
Banchory (lack of services to extend)
Westhill (lack of services to extend)
Lossiemouth (population)
Oldmeldrum (population)
Ballingry (population)
I would also place Glasgow Crossrail and Edinburgh-Perth via Glenfarg higher up the agenda, as well as Perth-Laurencekirk via Forfar (though I'm not sure about the alignments through the towns in that regard), than any new line to Callander.
So it's unlikely I'm afraid. The list of priorities above this one is too high. I'd imagine that, until Callander and Doune have a population of 10,000 between them, the rerouting of the Far North Line through Dornoch is more likely to go ahead than this one.
National Cycle Network Route 765 goes from Stirling to Dunblane and then uses some of the old trackbed to Doune. It is planned to go through Doune, then continue on the trackbed to Callander via Burn of Cambus, where it will connect with NCN 7.
