Petition launched to demand re-opening of Dumfries-Stranraer railway line

[Sandy R]

Much more of the Borders line trackbed was intact, the terrain was more favourable, the line is shorter and you're comparing 2010 pounds to 2020 pounds.

The Borders line had massive costs are the northern end, diverting and reconstructing the Edinburgh City Bypass and bridging the Hardengreen roundabout.
Not to mention 7 station in 30.75 miles, 3 dynamic passing loops, tunnel refurbishment, etc etc.
The cost per mile of the Galloway railway would be less per mile.
And the Borders line cost 354 million at 2015 prices, and inflation is low.

 

[6Gman]

Time D&g had a slice of the pie.

Ah, back to the " 'snot fair " argument.

Generally a sign that every other argument is weak.

 

[Bald Rick]

And the Borders line cost 354 million at 2015 prices, and inflation is low.

A common misconception on both counts. The borders line cost began with a '4' (and not low 4s either) when you include all the costs of all stages by all parties concerned. Which you have to do to get a true representation of the cost of future projects.

Inflation in the construction industry is quite different to inflation for the 'basket of goods' that makes up CPI / RPI.


To put this simply - if the railway existed now it would lose a ton of money, with subsidy perhaps heading north of £50 per passenger. There can be no socio-economic argument, at any time, that could justify introducing a new service with that level of subsidy, when potential alternatives have much lower subsidy levels.

And all that assumes the railway exists - which it doesn't. Proposing to spend what would be the best part of a billion quid, to then be left with a service requiring that level of subsidy, is just nonsense.

 

[Sandy R]

Ah, back to the " 'snot fair " argument.

Generally a sign that every other argument is weak.

No. Generally a sign that transport spending should be spent evenly throughout the country.
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---

A common misconception on both counts. The borders line cost began with a '4' (and not low 4s either) when you include all the costs of all stages by all parties concerned. Which you have to do to get a true representation of the cost of future projects.

Inflation in the construction industry is quite different to inflation for the 'basket of goods' that makes up CPI / RPI.


To put this simply - if the railway existed now it would lose a ton of money, with subsidy perhaps heading north of £50 per passenger. There can be no socio-economic argument, at any time, that could justify introducing a new service with that level of subsidy, when potential alternatives have much lower subsidy levels.

And all that assumes the railway exists - which it doesn't. Proposing to spend what would be the best part of a billion quid, to then be left with a service requiring that level of subsidy, is just nonsense.

Total cost of the Borders Line was £294 million pure construction cost and £60 million in all other costs combined. There is no '4' involved.
How much is the subsidy per passenger on the Borders line ??
What was the BCR calculation for the Borders line ?
Whats the population of Stow ?
How much freight is on the Borders line ?
It was built despite all these impediments, so there is absolutely no reason the same cannot be done with Dumfries to Stranraer.

 

[RichmondCommu]

If I were looking for rail investment priorities for D&G, I'd focus on:

1. Beattock station, way overdue

That's an interesting suggestion. My only reservation would be is there room in the timetable for a station stop at Beattock? Honest question here by the way

 

[Sandy R]

A common misconception on both counts. The borders line cost began with a '4' (and not low 4s either) when you include all the costs of all stages by all parties concerned. Which you have to do to get a true representation of the cost of future projects.

Inflation in the construction industry is quite different to inflation for the 'basket of goods' that makes up CPI / RPI.


To put this simply - if the railway existed now it would lose a ton of money, with subsidy perhaps heading north of £50 per passenger. There can be no socio-economic argument, at any time, that could justify introducing a new service with that level of subsidy, when potential alternatives have much lower subsidy levels.

And all that assumes the railway exists - which it doesn't. Proposing to spend what would be the best part of a billion quid, to then be left with a service requiring that level of subsidy, is just nonsense.

The 'high subsidy' railway you mention is a railway with no freight, no through traffic and local passenger usage only.
That's the Borders line, not the Galloway line.

 

[najaB]

I think what we have here is classic case of "Don't spoil my idea with facts."

Sent from my Nexus 4 using Tapatalk

 

[Sandy R]

If I were looking for rail investment priorities for D&G, I'd focus on:

1. Beattock station, way overdue
2. Thornhill station
3. Ensuring the Nithsdale route gets electrified and Dumfries receives a fast service from Glasgow
4. A Stranraer-Cairnryan connection coupled with Girvan-Stranraer improvements

agree to all of those, bar Cairnryan, we are just being more ambitious.

 

[RichmondCommu]

The 'high subsidy' railway you mention is a railway with no freight, no through traffic and local passenger usage only.
That's the Borders line, not the Galloway line.

Would there be enough containers to fill a train heading towards England, bearing in mind that the margins on intermodal traffic are by all accounts very low.

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

The 'high subsidy' railway you mention is a railway with no freight, no through traffic and local passenger usage only.
That's the Borders line, not the Galloway line.

You seem to disregard the truth that at one end of the Borders Railway is the city that is Edinburgh. There is no comparison in any known commercial realism that sees Dumfries compare to Edinburgh, save for the fact that both do possess a camera obscura,

 

[Sandy R]

That's an interesting suggestion. My only reservation would be is there room in the timetable for a station stop at Beattock? Honest question here by the way

Trans Pennine may serve the station, VWC certainly wouldn't.
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---

Would there be enough containers to fill a train heading towards England, bearing in mind that the margins on intermodal traffic are by all accounts very low.

15 containers is break even point. Stand on the A75 anywhere for 10 minutes and count the Irish lorries going by.

 

[RichmondCommu]

Trans Pennine may serve the station, VWC certainly wouldn't.

Yes I would agree with that but it's a question of whether stopping at Beattock would disrupt VWC services. Like I said it's an honest question and nothing more

 

[Sandy R]

I think what we have here is classic case of "Don't spoil my idea with facts."

Sent from my Nexus 4 using Tapatalk

While you ignore the fact that Cairnryan -Larne is a far shorter crossing than Belfast to Heysham.
Also they serve different markets, the comparison is pointless.
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---

Yes I would agree with that but it's a question of whether stopping at Beattock would disrupt VWC services. Like I said it's an honest question and nothing more

There are only 2 VWC services each hour on that section, shouldn't cause any disruption.

 

[najaB]

15 containers is break even point. Stand on the A75 anywhere for 10 minutes and count the Irish lorries going by.

If there are that many lorries heading for England then improving Belfast-Heysham is the answer. It's already rail-connected and is a lot closer to northern England.

 

[RichmondCommu]

15 containers is break even point. Stand on the A75 anywhere for 10 minutes and count the Irish lorries going by.

However how far do those containers have to travel in order to break even? From what I can gather distance is the key factor here along with ensuring that there are enough containers traveling in the same direction.

Honest question here; how many of those lorries are carrying containers?

 

[Sandy R]

You seem to disregard the truth that at one end of the Borders Railway is the city that is Edinburgh. There is no comparison in any known commercial realism that sees Dumfries compare to Edinburgh, save for the fact that both do possess a camera obscura,

Im not disregarding it, Dumfries is both a destination and a through point to Carlisle and beyond, The line is a strategic link between the north of Ireland, Scotland and northern England.
And its irrelevant how big the capital city is, when the line to the Borders terminates at a town of barely 14,000 people, ie hardly any bigger than Stranraer. The vast majority of the traffic on the line is northbound, not southbound, I wonder what percentage of Edinburgh residents have been to gala on the train ? Tiny i'd imagine.
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The 1st, 2nd, 4th, 5th, 6th and 7th biggest towns, yes, but you're still talking next to nobody overall. Certainly not worth spending the hundreds of millions it would take to reinstate this line. It would be cheaper to buy them each a car and pay someone to drive it for them.
If your intention is getting container traffic off the road, then subsidise Stennaline putting a larger ferry on the Belfast-Heysham route as it's already rail connected. Hell, even buying them a couple of new ferries would probably be cheaper.

I repeat, there's 57,000 people in Galloway, not 'nobody overall'.
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---

Yes, these areas have had a lot of money spent on them, but in pretty much every case they've also got the population density/ the traffic volumes/ the congestion to justify that investment.

The "they've had silly money spent on them, so why can't we" argument does get used a lot on here - usually in terms of "a branchline to my favourite holiday destination in Cumbria/ Cornwall/ Anglesey would be a fraction of the cost of HS2"...



How many of them are housebound/ in Old People's Homes etc?

How many of that 24% would be capable of getting to their nearest (re-opened) station?



...and the A75 contains a lot of trucks that are of no economic benefit to Scotland - so putting a better ferry on a "Dumfries And Galloway Bypass" ferry route from Heysham to Northern Ireland would take a good chunk of freight off the A75.



Doesn't matter if they are all relatively tiny rural towns (borderline villages in some cases?)



On what grounds?

Compared to visitor numbers at Edinburgh Castle? What's the main attraction in D&G (to compare numbers)?





^This^

If there are DMUs to invest in Dumfries to Carlisle then great.

Dumfries to Kilmarnock/ Glasgow as a second priority. Stranraer to Ayr next - though a pretty weak market that could cope with a 153 most of the time.

Stranraer to Dumfries would be linking two towns that aren't close enough or big enough to justify many daily commuters (and as for the idea of people regularly doing Stranraer to London...)

4,500 isn't a 'village.
How long does Belfast-Heysham take ?
Dumfries and Galloway attractions ? google it, you'll be surprised.
You don't know much about then population demographic of Dumfries and Galloway. Yes, plenty old folk, well off ones that drive, many retirees from other parts of the country and across the border. And a large section of the younger population who drive because there is no train service !

 

[me123]

People would mainly be travelling east TO Dumfries for employment, links to other train services, ie Carlisle, Newcastle, London etc etc.

My point exactly. And there aren't enough people there to justify building a railway line! You talk about 55000+, but the vast majority of that is in Dumfries and there's not a huge demand for them to do West.

You've missed Dalbeattie, population 4,500. This line would link the 1st, 2nd, 4th, 5th, 6th and 7th biggest towns in the region, and all of those bar Stranraer would be less than an hour from Dumfries, in the case of Dalbeattie and Castle Douglas , less than an hour from Carlisle.

How could I forget about the sprawling metropolis that is Dalbeattie? You fail to point out that these settlements are small in the grand scheme of things.

Combining freight potential,(Irish bound containers, local timber etc etc) through passenger traffic as well as local, and tourist train potential makes the line viable.

You'll need to provide evidence for that. Tourist trains are a minimal number all in all. Freight can go via Kilmarnock, and you'd need to demonstrate that a new route would be more attractive to freight operators and generate a substantial increase in demand.

Dumfries and Galloway was voted top tourist destination in Scotland, the A75 corridor is the main export route between the north of Ireland , southern Scptland and Northern England. There is a lot going for this scheme.

As true as all that is, it doesn't make a rail link viable. You forget that the numbers are exceptionally low, the population density sparse and likely frequency will be poor. Tourists and freight will probably continue to use the road for many reasons. It simply is not feasible.

 

[AndyW33]

I always feel that the people who say that re-opening this railway will be a great benefit to Gatehouse of Fleet have never actually been there. When the railway was open, Gatehouse station was seven miles from the actual village, in unpopulated moorland, linked to the village by a narrow road that didn't go anywhere else in particular. This hasn't changed.
In fact people in Gatehouse who use public transport are likely to be worse off if the railway reopens. At the moment they at least do have 10 buses a day on weekdays along the old A75 to Newton Stewart and Stranraer in the one direction and to Castle Douglas and Dumfries in the other, but if longer distance passengers forsake the bus for the train, the viability of the bus will be damaged and it will likely become even less frequent. Who is going to run a bus shuttle to a re-opened Gatehouse station, and how many trains a day would actually call there?

Castle Douglas manages 30 buses a day on weekdays to Dumfries, so living there and working in Dumfries is hardly difficult now.The buses follow different routes serving different combinations of villages, and half of them serve Dalbeattie on the way.

 

[ian959]

The line is a strategic link between the north of Ireland, Scotland and northern England.

How do you manage to come up with a ridiculous statement like that? If the railway was such a strategic link, why did it close in 1965 and there has been no real effort to reopen the line in the past 50 years? Compare that to the Borders Railway where there was a strong campaign from the day it closed to get it reopened.

It is essentially a line that goes from nowhere important to somewhere else of slightly more importance in the overall scheme of things nowadays. Since the ferries no longer go to/from Stranraer, a railway to Stranraer has zero point whatsoever. Sure there might be SOME traffic generated by the line but nothing like what you dream about. The sad fact is that the money would be MUCH better spent on other projects of much more overall benefit to Scotland as a whole, and I speak as someone who would love to see the line reopened.

Oh and you might like to check up on how much was spent on the campaigns, reviews, reports and whatever else on the Borders Railway before the line was committed to being reopened at a physical cost of £300 million pounds plus... Bald Rick knows the numbers well hence why he said over £400 million.

 

[DerekC]

The line is a strategic link between the north of Ireland, Scotland and northern England

Now if one day the fixed link to Ireland is built across the North Channel (as proposed in 1890) that might change the game!

 

[bangor-toad]

Let me add a little from a Northern Ireland perspective...

There's no way that such a rail link would be useful for NI based freight.
Most of the goods coming into NI are delivered by truck and the systems in place for that are very efficient. The unaccompanied trailer model works fantastically well - if you are ever nearby just look at the trailer staging areas at the Cairnryan and Heysham.

If you're not familiar with this, essentially it means a mainland driver hauls a trailer as far as the port, drops it off at the port and picks up another that arrived on the last sailing. They then take that off wherever they need to go. It makes scheduling straightforward and you don't have the truck drivers wasting their time on a ferry.
Loading/unloading of the trailers is incredibly quick. All it needs are a few little tractor units to move the trailers around. There are very low infrastructure costs involved.

Transhipment of goods off a ferry, then to a loading yard some miles away, then loading them onto a train that has a fixed, probably only a few times a day, schedule, unloading them from the train and onto a truck for final delivery is inefficient and costly. That's assuming the goods are nicely containerised and easy to handle.
The time and cost of using a short rail link for freight will be far to high.


As for NI passengers - it's quicker, easier and invariably cheaper to fly. This is the modal shift of the last 20 years. In the past the SailRail train to the ferries were packed. Now each SailRail connecting coach service has a tiny number of passengers. (That's from observations of many trips myself)
"Quicker" is key. Assuming I leave my building here in Belfast I can get a taxi to either airport, checkin, fly and reach almost any UK destination before the ferry leaving at a comparable time would have docked in Scotland.

The foot passenger market has gone and there are vanishingly few passengers who would travel NI - ferry - train through Carlisle to points east or south. A new railway from Stranraer to Carlisle via Dumfries is not going to make any change. Perhaps there would be the opportunity to get the passengers off the 2 or 3 coaches a day that go that route but it's not big numbers.


So, if you're looking for a new railway it's not going to have much justification from strategic long distance NI traffic. Instead you're looking solely at the local population and as almost everyone else says - it just isn't enough and it's too widely dispersed.

Sorry to be negative about ideas but realism does need to come into it...
Mr Toad

 

[47271]

For anyone interested in Beattock reopening, they're actually quite (okay, reasonably) far down the line, and indeed with Transpennine as the operator.

http://www.beattockstationactiongroup.org.uk/

My comment upthread on a rail link to Cairnryan was no more than a common sense means of ensuring that as many people use the Stranraer train as possible, no point in going to a harbour without boats, and I'd put it a distant fourth after the other priorities.

 

[Greenback]

I think that this is another suggestion for reopening an old line which is utterly unfeasible and without any kind fo a business case at this time. never say never, but there would have to be some very significant changes in the economy, patterns of demand, and how we look on rail services before this could ever be worthy of serious consideration.

 

[tbtc]

I appreciate that many on the Forum have an obsession with re-opening old routes through scenic parts of the country well way from any large conurbation (e.g. over five hundred posts in the thread about Aberystwyth to Carmarthen), but even by such standards this is a weak case.

If the freight argument is so strong then when was the last freight train from Dumfries to Stranraer? Or even from Glasgow to Stranraer? What's stopping someone running rail freight today via Kilmarnock (with a short siding to Cairnryan, which you'd have to build anyway)? Could it be the absolute lack of any sensible business case?

Does anyone really think people in Stranraer will be willing to put up with a four hour round trip on the train to work in Dumfries every day? Just how many jobs will there be in Dumfries to attract people?

Ayr is roughly the same size as Dumfries, though a little closer to Stranraer - how many commuters are there between the two places?

Ah, back to the " 'snot fair " argument.

Generally a sign that every other argument is weak.

No. Generally a sign that transport spending should be spent evenly throughout the country.

I completetely disagree.

Transport spending should be focussed on areas where there is real (and quantifiable untapped) demand.

You wouldn't spend the same money on flood defences in every county, you wouldn't spend the same money on motorways in every county - you prioritise spending to where it is needed.

How much is the subsidy per passenger on the Borders line ??

Interesting question.

From all the comments enthusiasts make about the "success" of the project, you'd assume it was making a profit, but I retain a healthy scepticism in that regard...

What was the BCR calculation for the Borders line ?

The line wasn't built because it had a good BCR, it was built as the price of the LibDems propping up a minority Labour administration at Holyrood.

That's why the "beating passenger forecasts" guff should be taken with a pinch of salt, because the line wasn't built because of a healthy business case, it was built because of political pork-barrelling.

The line is a strategic link between the north of Ireland, Scotland and northern England

"Strategic link" tends to be used on this Forum as a straw-clutching exercise, along with "useful as a diversionary line on a couple of weekends a year", "unquantifiable social benefits" and "would put Insert Town Name Here on the map".

Flimsy.

I repeat, there's 57,000 people in Galloway, not 'nobody overall'

...spread over a fairly wide area (i.e. the kind of population density unsuited to mass transportation.

How long does Belfast-Heysham take ?

The question should be "how long does Belfast - Heysham - Manchester/ London take" - since the vast majority of the lorries on the A75 are going beyond Dumfries and down the M6.

Dumfries and Galloway attractions ? google it, you'll be surprised

Oh there are some tourist attractions, but nothing "big league"

(look at how pretty much everything that brings in the big numbers is either in the central belt or Highlands - e.g. https://www.visitscotland.com/blog/culture/most-visited/ )

So your quote about D&G "voted top tourist destination in Scotland" is either some internet poll that has no bearing on reality or is a little disingenuous.

Let me add a little from a Northern Ireland perspective...

There's no way that such a rail link would be useful for NI based freight.
Most of the goods coming into NI are delivered by truck and the systems in place for that are very efficient. The unaccompanied trailer model works fantastically well - if you are ever nearby just look at the trailer staging areas at the Cairnryan and Heysham.

If you're not familiar with this, essentially it means a mainland driver hauls a trailer as far as the port, drops it off at the port and picks up another that arrived on the last sailing. They then take that off wherever they need to go. It makes scheduling straightforward and you don't have the truck drivers wasting their time on a ferry.
Loading/unloading of the trailers is incredibly quick. All it needs are a few little tractor units to move the trailers around. There are very low infrastructure costs involved.

Transhipment of goods off a ferry, then to a loading yard some miles away, then loading them onto a train that has a fixed, probably only a few times a day, schedule, unloading them from the train and onto a truck for final delivery is inefficient and costly. That's assuming the goods are nicely containerised and easy to handle.
The time and cost of using a short rail link for freight will be far to high.


As for NI passengers - it's quicker, easier and invariably cheaper to fly. This is the modal shift of the last 20 years. In the past the SailRail train to the ferries were packed. Now each SailRail connecting coach service has a tiny number of passengers. (That's from observations of many trips myself)
"Quicker" is key. Assuming I leave my building here in Belfast I can get a taxi to either airport, checkin, fly and reach almost any UK destination before the ferry leaving at a comparable time would have docked in Scotland.

The foot passenger market has gone and there are vanishingly few passengers who would travel NI - ferry - train through Carlisle to points east or south. A new railway from Stranraer to Carlisle via Dumfries is not going to make any change. Perhaps there would be the opportunity to get the passengers off the 2 or 3 coaches a day that go that route but it's not big numbers.


So, if you're looking for a new railway it's not going to have much justification from strategic long distance NI traffic. Instead you're looking solely at the local population and as almost everyone else says - it just isn't enough and it's too widely dispersed.

Sorry to be negative about ideas but realism does need to come into it...
Mr Toad

^ probably the most interesting contribution to the thread - factual, informative, realistic.

I didn't know about the unaccompanied trailer model, but can see that it's a great idea.

 

[47271]

I think that this is another suggestion for reopening an old line which is utterly unfeasible and without any kind fo a business case at this time. never say never, but there would have to be some very significant changes in the economy, patterns of demand, and how we look on rail services before this could ever be worthy of serious consideration.

Oh I know, my point is that if D&G has a priority list of rail schemes with Dumfries-Stranraer reinstatement as a highly unlikely fifth, then Cairnryan would want to be fourth.

Maybe if everyone in the region who's interested could focus on optimising the routes they've got then they'd be getting somewhere.

 

[Bald Rick]

15 containers is break even point.

That's interesting. Somewhat lower than what one of my chums reckons. (He runs one of the Freight operating companies).

 

[Philip Phlopp]

That's interesting. Somewhat lower than what one of my chums reckons. (He runs one of the Freight operating companies).

It might be taking into account the Scottish Government Freight Facilities Grant and the Mode Shift Revenue Support, but then you've got an enormous subsidy for every box that moves by rail.

I don't know why, but a quick look on Flickr to see the lorry park for Cairnryan shows no containers on trailers, and a number of Argos, M&S and ASDA delivery vehicles which clearly can't be converted to containerised freight. I'd be quite surprised if 15 containers could be generated per sailing.

 

[MarkyT]

I didn't know about the unaccompanied trailer model, but can see that it's a great idea.

Possibly also the most promising opportunity for longer distance non bulk railfreight too nationwide but even if such trains were viable in connection with the ferry that traffic could certainly never justify a new railway, as freight could easily run via Cumnock or Kilmarnock. A rail terminal for such trailers to Cairnryan might be better situated near Girvan, then the port tractors could shuttle back and forth along the A77 to pick them up.

Passengerwise, Stranraer struggles to justify a suitably attractive frequency of service on the existing line today to Ayr and Glasgow. That's not helped by the station being retained out at the head of the pier, perhaps in some vain hope that some shipping will return one day. It is a long walk from anywhere in the town and makes interchange with local buses and taxis needlessly difficult.

 

[MarkyT]

I don't know why, but a quick look on Flickr to see the lorry park for Cairnryan shows no containers on trailers, and a number of Argos, M&S and ASDA delivery vehicles which clearly can't be converted to containerised freight. I'd be quite surprised if 15 containers could be generated per sailing.

If these trailers could be accomodated on rail wagons however . . .

 

[Greenback]

Oh I know, my point is that if D&G has a priority list of rail schemes with Dumfries-Stranraer reinstatement as a highly unlikely fifth, then Cairnryan would want to be fourth.

I agree that it's unlikely that this route would get as high as fifth!

Maybe if everyone in the region who's interested could focus on optimising the routes they've got then they'd be getting somewhere.

I support this suggestion completely!

That's interesting. Somewhat lower than what one of my chums reckons. (He runs one of the Freight operating companies).

I would think that your chum is correct!