How can the Stranraer line be made more useful/less useless?

[Bill57p9]

Electrification and frequency upgrade to Girvan but closure south thereof would probably be a pragmatic solution. Buses (ideally electric) could operate between Girvan and Stranraer/Cairnryan integrated to the timetable. This would probably be better for everyone as an hourly bus would likely be feasible.

With regret (the line south of Girvan is a little known scenic gem) I do agree.

I suspect an hourly express bus Girvan - Stranraer would be quicker than the train too, and as you say, could also serve Cairnryan (and Loch Ryan port at the other end of the village).

The extant RailSail Ayr - Cairnryan service has been reduced to only one per day and passes Girvan station ( I can understand why Ayr is a more appealing interchange than Girvan currently with half hourly direct services to/from Glasgow).

 

[Transilien]

The key difference is that this line lost its main purpose when the ferries moved.

Therefore, the main way to save the Stranraer line would be to move the ferries back to the station. It’s probably impossible to do that though.

 

[35B]

Therefore, the main way to save the Stranraer line would be to move the ferries back to the station. It’s probably impossible to do that though.

That also raises the question of why the ferries exist, and what needs the different transport modes serve. Forcing a move of the ferries to support (an already highly unprofitable) railway feels a little like the tail wagging the dog

 

[Bill57p9]

Therefore, the main way to save the Stranraer line would be to move the ferries back to the station. It’s probably impossible to do that though.

The ferries moved for valid commercial reasons, primarily reducing the crossing time.
The operators are not looking for ways to increase that!

 

[Elwyn]

The ferries moved for valid commercial reasons, primarily reducing the crossing time.
The operators are not looking for ways to increase that!

Therefore, the main way to save the Stranraer line would be to move the ferries back to the station. It’s probably impossible to do that though.

Stranraer harbour is comparatively shallow and does not suit the bigger modern vessels. Regular dredging would be required and that makes no sense when Cairnryan does not need dredging. Stena also save 20 minutes each way by using Cairnryan rather than Stranraer.

The days of foot passengers travelling to Stranraer by train to join ferries in significant numbers are gone. Stranraer will never be a ferry port again and train connections for ferries will not be required there either.

 

[Strathclyder]

Electrification and frequency upgrade to Girvan but closure south thereof would probably be a pragmatic solution. Buses (ideally electric) could operate between Girvan and Stranraer/Cairnryan integrated to the timetable. This would probably be better for everyone as an hourly bus would likely be feasible.

With regret (the line south of Girvan is a little known scenic gem) I do agree.

I suspect an hourly express bus Girvan - Stranraer would be quicker than the train too, and as you say, could also serve Cairnryan (and Loch Ryan port at the other end of the village).

The extant RailSail Ayr - Cairnryan service has been reduced to only one per day and passes Girvan station ( I can understand why Ayr is a more appealing interchange than Girvan currently with half hourly direct services to/from Glasgow).

That could very well be feasible and the least worst option when it comes to alternatives in a post-south of Girvan closure scenario, but it would require a level of joined up thinking & operation that hasn't existed between public transport modes - or isn't nearly as widespread as it should be - in Scotland for as long as I can remember, regardless of a plan's feasibility. So I can't shake my cynicism on this topic, am afraid.

 

[Bletchleyite]

That could very well be feasible and the least worst option when it comes to alternatives in a post-south of Girvan closure scenario, but it would require a level of joined up thinking & operation that hasn't existed between public transport modes - or isn't nearly as widespread as it should be - in Scotland for as long as I can remember regardless of a plan's feasibility, so I can't shake my cynicism on this am afraid.

I must admit it does surprise me that Scotland hasn't considered following Wales in regulating the bus service nationally. It would allow for proper integration like this.

 

[Sir Felix Pole]

Stranraer harbour is comparatively shallow and does not suit the bigger modern vessels. Regular dredging would be required and that makes no sense when Cairnryan does not need dredging. Stena also save 20 minutes each way by using Cairnryan rather than Stranraer.

The days of foot passengers travelling to Stranraer by train to join ferries in significant numbers are gone. Stranraer will never be a ferry port again and train connections for ferries will not be required there either.

And if you travel by Stena the arrangements at the Belfast end are not ideal either - you have to faff around waiting to take the bus to the city-centre. A lot of the remaining foot passengers use Hannon's coaches which provide a twice daily through service Glasgow - Belfast and v.v.

 

[Class15]

I must admit it does surprise me that Scotland hasn't considered following Wales in regulating the bus service nationally. It would allow for proper integration like this.

I’m not trying to prove you wrong as I genuinely have no idea, but what makes you think they haven’t considered it?

 

[Bletchleyite]

I’m not trying to prove you wrong as I genuinely have no idea, but what makes you think they haven’t considered it?

It might have done, I more mean why they haven't decided to do it!

One for another thread to delve into it, but it would make stuff like this easier.

 

[Rescars]

That also raises the question of why the ferries exist, and what needs the different transport modes serve.

For an answer to your question, just look at the volume of freight on the A75 and A76, both of which are mainly single carriageway with sparse opportunities for overtaking. Oh how the motorist's heart sinks coming off the motorway at Carlisle and seeing the sign at the start of the single carriageway: Stranraer 95 miles! With the Port Road long gone sadly there are no reasonable alternatives for reaching Stranraer from the south. It would be regrettable indeed if those heading down from Girvan were to suffer a similar absence of choice.

 

[35B]

For an answer to your question, just look at the volume of freight on the A75 and A76, both of which are mainly single carriageway with sparse opportunities for overtaking. Oh how the motorist's heart sinks coming off the motorway at Carlisle and seeing the sign at the start of the single carriageway: Stranraer 95 miles! With the Port Road long gone sadly there are no reasonable alternatives for reaching Stranraer from the south. It would be regrettable indeed if those heading down from Girvan were to suffer a similar absence of choice.

I can't see that as an argument for the existing line - the railway's been an irrelevance for freight to the North Channel for my whole lifetime, so the ferries are serving a need that the railway simply doesn't meet.

 

[The exile]

For an answer to your question, just look at the volume of freight on the A75 and A76, both of which are mainly single carriageway with sparse opportunities for overtaking. Oh how the motorist's heart sinks coming off the motorway at Carlisle and seeing the sign at the start of the single carriageway: Stranraer 95 miles! With the Port Road long gone sadly there are no reasonable alternatives for reaching Stranraer from the south. It would be regrettable indeed if those heading down from Girvan were to suffer a similar absence of choice.

The only thing is, presumably, that that freight is heading for Cairnryan - not Stranraer (any more).

 

[HighlandStorm]

Even if a peak train carries 40 people, we are talking about a substantial railway carrying bus passenger numbers.

To be honest some of the vibes in this thread seem to be of not merely close the railway, but bulldoze places like Stranraer into the sea while you’re at it! The UK as a whole does seem to have a very poor attitude to investing in and providing for its rural areas.

Treasury orthodoxy is a major contributing factor to an inefficient low growth economy.

I suspect if devolution hadn’t happened in 1999, the Scottish rail network would have contracted over the past 27 years instead of expanding. As I’ve said before, if you expect all tax payers to contribute to the railway, you should not be looking to leave large swathes of the British mainland without a railway.

The only exception I’d countenance to that might be if the Stranrer line was cut back as part of a comprehensive transport package that saw a substantial upgrade to the A77 south of Girvan along with electrification to Girvan and ScotRail operated coaches to Stranraer.

Do we really want to open the line closures can of worms? Particularly when right wing populists are pledging to roll back devolution and remove legislative authority from the Scottish and Welsh Parliaments to make them enact polices laid down from HM Government.

 

[NCT]

About 85% of the UK is urbanised. To be blunt, a railway that funded by 85% of taxpayers for those 85% would be an entirely fair way of the world. As things stand, the portion of the 15% that are rail connected are subsidised by the 85%.

 

[HighlandStorm]

About 85% of the UK is urbanised. To be blunt, a railway that funded by 85% of taxpayers for those 85% would be an entirely fair way of the world. As things stand, the portion of the 15% that are rail connected are subsidised by the 85%.

How does that 85% expect to survive if the 15% weren’t rural ?

 

[Bletchleyite]

About 85% of the UK is urbanised. To be blunt, a railway that funded by 85% of taxpayers for those 85% would be an entirely fair way of the world

That's generally not how a redistributive tax system works.

 

[HamworthyGoods]

About 85% of the UK is urbanised. To be blunt, a railway that funded by 85% of taxpayers for those 85% would be an entirely fair way of the world. As things stand, the portion of the 15% that are rail connected are subsidised by the 85%.

You don’t want to eat then?
I’m sure the rural folk will be happy to keep all their food from the rural farms so you can focus on your urbanised railway then.

Never heard of the word share?

 

[Bletchleyite]

You don’t want to eat then?
I’m sure the rural folk will be happy to keep all their food from the rural farms so you can focus on your urbanised railway then.

Never heard of the word share?

@NCT's argument would basically lead to a Serpell network, maybe leaving a few bits in place like Merseyrail which he was going to close* in favour of buses. Stranraer is a particular basket case of course but the view they express is very much the extreme end.

* Completely close the Southport line and most of the Wirral, the Ormskirk line would have lost its local stations and become intercity only, if I recall.

 

[Rescars]

I can't see that as an argument for the existing line - the railway's been an irrelevance for freight to the North Channel for my whole lifetime, so the ferries are serving a need that the railway simply doesn't meet.

Well it isn't as matters stand. Though in the highly improbable event of a significant switch to railbourne freight, there should be no capacity problem at Cairnryan. IIRC, whilst fully operational, the Cairnryan Military Railway had sidings for 2,900 wagons.

Had things turned out differently, Cairnryan might have been connected to the network well before 1940. The Glasgow and Belfast Union Railway proposed a route via Cairnryan as early as 1845.

 

[Gloster]

@NCT's argument would basically lead to a Serpell network, maybe leaving a few bits in place like Merseyrail which he was going to close* in favour of buses. Stranraer is a particular basket case of course but the view they express is very much the extreme end.

* Completely close the Southport line and most of the Wirral, the Ormskirk line would have lost its local stations and become intercity only, if I recall.

Liverpool-Southport would have gone in Option A, the nuclear one, and B, the nuclear one plus a few extra London outer-suburban lines, together with Oxford and Westbury. It was retained in the other options

Stranraer also went in Options A and B, but also in C3, the ’reduce the deficit to £500 million’ one. But there are all sorts of illogical things in the report, such as keeping the Vale of Rheidol as an isolated line in a couple of options.

 

[Acathater]

The only thing is, presumably, that that freight is heading for Cairnryan - not Stranraer (any more).

I'm surprised that there's much freight coming from the south given that Heysham is around 180 miles shorter by road.
Is the Cairnryan traffic mainly accompanied or unaccompanied trucks?

 

[bramling]

To be honest some of the vibes in this thread seem to be of not merely close the railway, but bulldoze places like Stranraer into the sea while you’re at it! The UK as a whole does seem to have a very poor attitude to investing in and providing for its rural areas.

Treasury orthodoxy is a major contributing factor to an inefficient low growth economy.

I suspect if devolution hadn’t happened in 1999, the Scottish rail network would have contracted over the past 27 years instead of expanding. As I’ve said before, if you expect all tax payers to contribute to the railway, you should not be looking to leave large swathes of the British mainland without a railway.

The only exception I’d countenance to that might be if the Stranrer line was cut back as part of a comprehensive transport package that saw a substantial upgrade to the A77 south of Girvan along with electrification to Girvan and ScotRail operated coaches to Stranraer.

Do we really want to open the line closures can of worms? Particularly when right wing populists are pledging to roll back devolution and remove legislative authority from the Scottish and Welsh Parliaments to make them enact polices laid down from HM Government.

It’s quite hard to compare what might have happened, as there are few if any lines in England which share the same characteristics of Stranraer, as well as route like the Far North or West Highland - very long routes serving sparse population only generating sufficient traffic to justify a handful of short trains per day. The only line that readily comes to mind is Whitby, and of course in Wales there’s the Central Wales, and perhaps a couple of branches like Fishguard and Conwy Valley.

There does have to come a point where the question at least has to be asked whether it’s reasonable to expect the taxpayer to subsidise a rail service to Stranraer and Barrhill that is essentially only used by not much more than a handful of people.

What function is the service providing? It is being used, for example, for people in Stranraer to access jobs in the Glasgow area? It’s notable that there aren’t really direct through services to Glasgow, which appears to be quite informative.

 

[Rescars]

I'm surprised that there's much freight coming from the south given that Heysham is around 180 miles shorter by road.
Is the Cairnryan traffic mainly accompanied or unaccompanied trucks?

According to Transport Scotland, the A75 has an average daily traffic flow of 9000 vehicles, of which HGVs account for around 15%.

 

[Farigiraf]

It’s notable that there aren’t really direct through services to Glasgow, which appears to be quite informative.

That's more due to a lack of electrification than a lack of demand. There's quite a lot of turnover at Ayr to access the faster electric service into Glasgow.

 

[35B]

To be honest some of the vibes in this thread seem to be of not merely close the railway, but bulldoze places like Stranraer into the sea while you’re at it! The UK as a whole does seem to have a very poor attitude to investing in and providing for its rural areas.

Treasury orthodoxy is a major contributing factor to an inefficient low growth economy.

I suspect if devolution hadn’t happened in 1999, the Scottish rail network would have contracted over the past 27 years instead of expanding. As I’ve said before, if you expect all tax payers to contribute to the railway, you should not be looking to leave large swathes of the British mainland without a railway.

The only exception I’d countenance to that might be if the Stranrer line was cut back as part of a comprehensive transport package that saw a substantial upgrade to the A77 south of Girvan along with electrification to Girvan and ScotRail operated coaches to Stranraer.

Do we really want to open the line closures can of worms? Particularly when right wing populists are pledging to roll back devolution and remove legislative authority from the Scottish and Welsh Parliaments to make them enact polices laid down from HM Government.

I would like this line to remain open; I'm with others who have loved their journeys over the line and would not wish it to close.

However, the brutal reality is that this is a line whose core purpose has been fundamentally changed since the ferries moved to Cairnryan, and where this discussion is including a number of ideas for making it more relevant to it's residual very small resident population that are unlikely ever to justify the costs of their delivery.

When I was taught A-Level economics, investment was defined in terms of expenditure on economically productive equipment. Like many definitions, it raises challenges - in this case, because it forces focus on what is genuine investment, and what is simply expenditure.

That feeds into the question of how the population of this part of Galloway is most effectively supported. What's far from clear to me, even allowing for the well paid jobs of traincrew in Stranraer, is that maintaining the railway is in itself the way to achieve that - or is even consuming moneys that could be used in other ways.

 

[Farigiraf]

A few questions around cutting Girvan-Stranraer and replacing it with an "express coach":

- Assuming the GLC-Ayr services extend to Girvan, what'd serve Troon-Kilmarnock?

- What guarantees are there of the bus service being retained long term? It wouldn't have the level of permanence and political support that a railway does.

- What frequencies would you run such a bus service at? Who'd run it - a coach operator on a contract, or a local bus operator? Quality and long-term viability would heavily vary based on what you pick.

- How do you ensure both reliable, predictable services to Stranraer and good ferry connections at Cairnryan (to Stena, but also possibly P&O)? If you can't do both, how'd you prevent excessive duplication of services?

- How would you guarantee rail-bus connections at Girvan or Ayr? Reliability is one risk (particularly with A77 traffic), but also I doubt Girvan's small bus-only loop with a little shelter would fit a coach, and even if it did, it wouldn't be a particularly comfortable/convenient transfer compared to a direct train.

- How would you serve Barrhill? I'd suggest a Girvan-Newton Stewart coach service (departing alongside a Stranraer coach) but this is another route where managing capacity, frequency and long-term viability would be difficult, and subsidising a tendered coach route would be a risk regarding quality and reliability.

All these would have to be addressed properly for bus replacement to work. There's no cheap option other than abandoning Stranraer altogether and waiting for it to depopulate, a good bus on an obscure route still requires subsidy. Ignoring any of these issues runs the risk of replacing a decent train service with a crappy bus service, which is something we should leave in the last century.

 

[Bletchleyite]

It’s notable that there aren’t really direct through services to Glasgow, which appears to be quite informative.

I mean there is one, the first of the day which would be used by that market if it exists.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: Today at 18:47 ==

All these would have to be addressed properly for bus replacement to work. There's no cheap option other than abandoning Stranraer altogether and waiting for it to depopulate, a good bus on an obscure route still requires subsidy.

Rural public transport requires subsidy. That's largely accepted. Bus is just cheaper than rail.

 

[Farigiraf]

Rural public transport requires subsidy. That's largely accepted. Bus is just cheaper than rail.

My point was that we shouldn't compare a mediocre but acceptable train service with a mediocre but acceptable bus. A good bus service, which would be necessary to retain the viability of long-distance public transport to Stranraer, would still cost a good amount of money to run. Potentially cheaper long-term than the railway, but still a liability. Given the much lower permanence of bus services, it makes it a prime candidate for 'death by a thousand cuts' by Transport Scotland or South Ayrshire / Dumfries & Galloway councils. The railway, by comparison, doesn't have much left to cut.

 

[Bill57p9]

There is already an all shacks bus that runs every 2 hours between Girvan and Stranraer, taking just over an hour including a tour of half of Girvan. For comparison, the train takes just under an hour.

The bus serves Stranraer itself, rather than just the end of the pier.

I fully expect the branch will be rationalised and limp along for many years yet, rather than one of the two nettles being grasped, those being either to somehow drive demand into the service (relocate the station, improved rolling stock, good connections to/from Glasgow) or decide that the priority is to provide an economic public transport service.

As an aside, the Scottish £2 bus fare cap applies in Ayrshire but not Dumfries & Galloway.