St Andrews link - New Report for StARlink

PaxVobiscum · 17 Jun 2017

Since the previous thread on a possible St Andrews branch reopening is closed, I've started a new thread.

There's an article in the Scotsman today:

Campaigners renew push for St Andrews rail link

Campaigners have launched a new push to restore St Andrews to the rail network - but acknowledge there are many hurdles to clear in their long-running quest.

They have published a report highlighting the benefits of re-opening the five-mile line to the Fife town, which closed nearly 50 years ago.

However, the St Andrews Rail Link campaign (StARLink), which was founded in 1989, is still waiting for a bid to be lodged to fund the detailed study required before ministers would consider such a scheme.

Research commissioned five years ago showed the line would cost up to £71 million but cover its operating costs and provide faster journeys from Edinburgh than by road.

The latest report, by consultants Peter Brett Associates, said re-opening the rail spur from Leuchars would further boost St Andrews’ golf and other tourism.

It would also assist the University of St Andrews’ aim of becoming the UK’s first carbon neutral university.
more...

There appears to be a new report, but I can't find any links for it and unbelievably StARlink have not updated the news page on their website yet despite apparently holding a meeting in St Andrews yesterday to launch it. There's something on their Facebook about the meeting if you can access that.

I happened to be in St Andrews yesterday but didn't know anything about it :roll: .

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route:oxford · 17 Jun 2017

PaxVobiscum said:
I happened to be in St Andrews yesterday but didn't know anything about it :roll: .

I was there today. Utter chaos trying to get through Cupar due to an accident on the high street.

Completely mobbed trying to get to the West Sands, then, worst of all - it was about 20 minutes to get an Irn-Bru sorbet at Janetta's - and another 15 minutes to buy Strawberry tarts, rhubarb tarts and truffles at Fisher and Donaldson's.

Whilst StarLink couldn't resolve the Janetta's or Fisher & Donaldson issues, I wouldn't have wasted a long time on the roads just to get to St Andrews in the first place.

NotATrainspott · 17 Jun 2017

A good and easy first step for everyone would be for Fife Council to officially adopt the plans and protect the route for development. This would also relieve uncertainty, as the line is well within the realms of possibility and so may have a chilling effect on development if its exact route isn't confirmed. Town planning is best done decades in advance and having the plans down will help everyone make the most of the possibilities it could provide.

robertclark125 · 18 Jun 2017

There's two projects going on in Fife with regards to restoring rail services. Starlink, for St. Andrews, and then there's the Levenmouth Rail Link. The latter is actually the easiest to get reopened, as the track infrastructure is all there, and in the past Diageo has spoke, on and off, about using rail to transport goods to and from Levenmouth.

But, the levenouth rail link plan faces a few similar hurdles to Starlink, mainly getting funding, and getting backing from Transport Scotland.

I think in reality, if the two rail links do get reopened, eventually, St Andrews would probably be after Levenmouth in terms of reopening, as the latter need less works than St. Andrews.

gsnedders · 18 Jun 2017

NotATrainspott said:
A good and easy first step for everyone would be for Fife Council to officially adopt the plans and protect the route for development. This would also relieve uncertainty, as the line is well within the realms of possibility and so may have a chilling effect on development if its exact route isn't confirmed. Town planning is best done decades in advance and having the plans down will help everyone make the most of the possibilities it could provide.

To be fair, I expect there'd be an entirely new discussion about routing before any route got protected. And probably a new discussion about where any St Andrews station would be; I can't imagine reinstating the original station would be politically doable at this point without building a new large car park.

NotATrainspott · 18 Jun 2017

gsnedders said:
To be fair, I expect there'd be an entirely new discussion about routing before any route got protected. And probably a new discussion about where any St Andrews station would be; I can't imagine reinstating the original station would be politically doable at this point without building a new large car park.

The Tata Steel report gives a reasonable outline of what can be done in modern standards. A ~257m platform can fit on the current path between the old rail bridge abutments (to be reused) and the taxi road up to the bus station. A second platform would probably also be built given the desirability of charter and London services. The Tata service pattern was 1tph to Edinburgh, 2tph to Dundee. Given these requirements and the current standards, the only real decisions are about the route from the mainline to the station. That's why it might not be a bad idea for a route to be safeguarded, as it would pass reasonably close to existing development in Guardbridge and not having a safeguarded route will make it hard to get things developed in the village.

mcmad · 18 Jun 2017

Both St Andrews and Leven suffer from not having an existing service that can be extended easily to serve them. Trying to introduce stand alone services is going to struggle with the lack of available rolling stock

me123 · 18 Jun 2017

mcmad said:
Both St Andrews and Leven suffer from not having an existing service that can be extended easily to serve them. Trying to introduce stand alone services is going to struggle with the lack of available rolling stock

Not to mention lack of capacity over the Forth Bridge and on the approach to Edinburgh. The group aspire to an hourly service to both Edinburgh and Dundee. Dundee should be easily achieved (provided the rolling stock be provided - the one train required should be achievable). But you'd need a minimum of three trains to get an Edinburgh service off the ground (practically, unless the timetable managed to fit perfectly, you'd be quite likely to need four).

I could so easily get behind StARLink if someone could just demonstrate to me how the proposed service could be fit in around the existing timetable.

me123 · 18 Jun 2017

mcmad said:
Both St Andrews and Leven suffer from not having an existing service that can be extended easily to serve them.

St Andrews has that problem, yes. Leven, on the other hand, has the local train. Whilst many of these continue to Glenrothes, only one an hour continues around the loop and the other goes back to Kirkcaldy. You could divert the Glenrothes train to Leven with relatively little fuss I could say. Although you would be depriving Glenrothes of one train an hour and giving it a highly irregular service pattern for travel to Edinburgh.

najaB · 18 Jun 2017

me123 said:
St Andrews has that problem, yes. Leven, on the other hand, has the local train...

I posted on another thread that if you accept that Leven doesn't needs all-day direct trains to Edinburgh then a morning and evening direct service plus an all-day shuttle to Kirkcaldy would work, espcially if you extended the loop back to the station and built a north-facing bay platform. There's extant track and S&C from when the car park was still a goods yard.

robertclark125 · 18 Jun 2017

One suggestion that came up a few years ago, with regards to trains to Leven, was that the once an hour from Kirkcaldy which terminates at Glenrothes, gets diverted to Leven, and the cowdenbeath terminators get extended to Leven. that has the advantage of giving Lochgelly and Cardenden two trains an hour to and from Edinburgh, but also maintains the two trains to Edinburgh from Glenrothes with Thornton.

edwin_m · 18 Jun 2017

Why not extend the Glenrothes terminators to St Andrews and the Cowdenbeath terminator to Leven, or vice versa? Timetable suggests a stopper via Dunfermline would be less than five minutes slower than via Kirkcaldy.

najaB · 18 Jun 2017

edwin_m said:
Why not extend the Glenrothes terminators to St Andrews...

Glenrothes to St. Andrews and return is going to be about 90 minutes. Which means another unit (or two) will be needed.

DarloRich · 19 Jun 2017

me123 said:
e timetable managed to fit perfectly, you'd be quite likely to need four).

I could so easily get behind StARLink if someone could just demonstrate to me how the proposed service could be fit in around the existing timetable.

Agreed - it should be a "no brainer" but it isnt quite there yet!

mcmad · 19 Jun 2017

edwin_m said:
Why not extend the Glenrothes terminators to St Andrews and the Cowdenbeath terminator to Leven, or vice versa? Timetable suggests a stopper via Dunfermline would be less than five minutes slower than via Kirkcaldy.

They both currently head back almost immediately so any extensions would require a recast of the Fife timetable (with inevitable knock on closer to Edinburgh) and additional units.

theageofthetra · 19 Jun 2017

Is a light rail option being considered?

DarloRich · 19 Jun 2017

theageofthetra said:
Is a light rail option being considered?

surely that would defeat the benefits of being connected to the national network. You would still have to change at Leuchars

theageofthetra · 19 Jun 2017

DarloRich said:
surely that would defeat the benefits of being connected to the national network. You would still have to change at Leuchars

True but its better than none at all.

Blindtraveler · 19 Jun 2017

IMO the St andrews service should run a few minutes behind the Dundee or Perth to Edinburgh stoppers and attach at Kirkaldy as this service is fast then to Inverkeithing and Edinburgh Gateway. I think but could be wrong that theres still space on the bridge but your going to struggle to get much more into Waverley/haymarket.

It would work in the down direction too.

DarloRich · 19 Jun 2017

theageofthetra said:
True but its better than none at all.

is that not the argument for a better bus link?

Starmill · 19 Jun 2017

How practical is portion work? Perhaps some could divide off Aberdeen services at Leuchars? How many minutes might that add to the Aberdeen expresses?

Blindtraveler · 19 Jun 2017

I suggested the Kirkaldy portions which I think would work fine fine if done well including educating the passengers as the Aberdeens will be HSTs by the time this happens where as the Dundee/Perth stoppers will be 158/170s.

takno · 19 Jun 2017

Starmill said:
How practical is portion work? Perhaps some could divide off Aberdeen services at Leuchars? How many minutes might that add to the Aberdeen expresses?

A Leuchars split would have the advantage of the trains departing in different directions, which would speed things up a bit. Aren't the Aberdeen expresses going to be HSTs though? Might make portion working more of a challenge

overthewater · 19 Jun 2017

What some bonker and draft ideas are on this thread:

Fife council has three Rail plans at the moment, the missing one being the stupid idea for Glasgow - Alloa - Fife train. It take an hour to get from Alloa - Glasgow by train already add in the slow track around the coast and were be pushing what 90-100mins? There is a coach every 15mins that could do the jounrey in just over an hour.

Why not extend the Glenrothes terminators to St Andrews and the Cowdenbeath terminator to Leven, or vice versa? Timetable suggests a stopper via Dunfermline would be less than five minutes slower than via Kirkcaldy.

So what your suggesting is the service goes via the slow route? It still take an hour to get to just Glenrothes then you need to take on the travel time to Leven.

You would need to run a shuttle from Leven to Markinch, where there is two fast trains an hour. Again there is a bus every 20mins from Markinch connecting with most parts of Levenmouth. What is the off peak demand lie?

With St Andrew there is no point in Dundee - St Andrew train. it already take the Train 15mins From Dundee to Leuchars so that another 10-12 mins to St Andrews, which will match the bus service travel time but not Frequency which is every 10mins.

So that just leaves the Edinburgh to St Andrews. Would there be enough demand to operate an extra train every hour off peak? It would take away passengers on the other two journeys per hour.

What about a shuttle? that pointless since the bus service covers that much better.

Its false economy, you want a train for having a train. There a plenty of other places that badly need proper investment in the train network. Within Fife these ideas wont help.

najaB · 19 Jun 2017

overthewater said:
You would need to run a shuttle from Leven to Markinch, where there is two fast trains an hour.

The junction faces the wrong way so that adds quite a bit onto the budget.

overthewater said:
With St Andrew there is no point in Dundee - St Andrew train. it already take the Train 15mins From Dundee to Leuchars so that another 10-12 mins to St Andrews, which will match the bus service travel time but not Frequency which is every 10mins.

It would be Arbroath - St Andrews, surely? Along with Arbroath - Perth services. Maybe even Perth - Dundee (reverse) - St Andrews.

Clansman · 19 Jun 2017

Blindtraveler said:
I suggested the Kirkaldy portions which I think would work fine fine if done well including educating the passengers as the Aberdeens will be HSTs by the time this happens where as the Dundee/Perth stoppers will be 158/170s.

If you were to split the Dundee/Perth trains at Kirkcaldy for St. Andrews, and vice versa, it would add more capacity on these trains - something which is desperately needed on services worked by 158s.

Given Inverness will now see a 2 hourly service to Edinburgh throughout the day, there's no doubt that this will replace (or act as an extension to) some of the Perth-Edinburgh semi-fasts. So what about diverting the Inverness HSTs non stop via Stirling and Falkirk, and allowing St. Andrews to pick up the paths which would otherwise be used by the Perth-Edinburgh semi-fasts? Albeit it's 2 hourly, but it's not a bad stat. Although the chances of getting a path through Falkirk and Polmont without a chord at Dalmeny is pretty much 0 come 2019.

St. Andrews and Leven are both proof that there needs to be some sort of infrastructure improvement in Fife.

NotATrainspott · 19 Jun 2017

Fife rail plans have to be considered in light of the serious Halbeath-Inverkeithing bypass line idea that both NR and TS seem very keen on. When built, it means completely rewriting the timetable for every train which crosses the Forth Bridge. The reason the bypass is so seriously considered is that it allows for express and semi-fast services to overtake Fife Circle line trains in a way which is currently impossible. If coupled with other tweaks and linespeed improvements elsewhere in Fife, it could cut serious (>>10 minutes) amounts of time off the Perth/Dundee-Edinburgh journey time, as well as making it possible to fit even more trains on the Forth Bridge. With the bypass, you could have a Kirkcaldy train followed right behind by a Dunfermline train, then followed right behind by an express via the bypass. The express would then reach Markinch before the Kirkcaldy train, having double-leapfrogged both the stoppers. With the Leven, Perth and St Andrews branches taking off non-Circle stopping and semi-fast services, an express service could really have a clear run all the way from Forth to Tay even after adding lots of extra ones.

Tata Steel suggested having a 2tph St Andrews to Dundee shuttle to make the most of the line - it would involve minimal extra capital expense while providing an alternative to using the busy roads at peak times. While the end-to-end journey time might be comparable to bus in an ideal setting, it's also going to be much more reliable. St Andrews is a rare small town in that it's economically overheating, with the affluent student population and tourist flows causing all sorts of problems for the locals. I would think that most passengers on the Dundee shuttle would be heading into St Andrews rather than the other way around. While buses are okay, trains have much more of a transformative effect upon the economy and travel patterns. Dundee City Centre would be able to act as an annexe to St Andrews during the tourist season.

Clansman · 19 Jun 2017

NotATrainspott said:
Fife rail plans have to be considered in light of the serious Halbeath-Inverkeithing bypass line idea that both NR and TS seem very keen on. When built, it means completely rewriting the timetable for every train which crosses the Forth Bridge. The reason the bypass is so seriously considered is that it allows for express and semi-fast services to overtake Fife Circle line trains in a way which is currently impossible. If coupled with other tweaks and linespeed improvements elsewhere in Fife, it could cut serious (>>10 minutes) amounts of time off the Perth/Dundee-Edinburgh journey time, as well as making it possible to fit even more trains on the Forth Bridge. With the bypass, you could have a Kirkcaldy train followed right behind by a Dunfermline train, then followed right behind by an express via the bypass. The express would then reach Markinch before the Kirkcaldy train, having double-leapfrogged both the stoppers. With the Leven, Perth and St Andrews branches taking off non-Circle stopping and semi-fast services, an express service could really have a clear run all the way from Forth to Tay even after adding lots of extra ones.

^^^+1^^^
Totally agree about the Halbeath link. The current journey to Perth and Dundee from Edinburgh is a disgrace, and passengers living in the likes of Glenrothes (and Leven and St. Andrews) deserve better and faster links to Edinburg - which a Halbeath line can facilitate with by allowing more services to run throughout Fife which can even out the calling points. It's just a shame the Perth line was shut all them years ago then we would have way better connections to and from the Capital.

A link to Halbeath is a cheaper solution as opposed to rebuilding right the way up to Perth via Kinross, as the benefits are identical in both. Surely it needs to be included within the next 2 control periods.

route:oxford · 19 Jun 2017

Would terminating at platform 0 at Haymarket be helpful?

It would still connect with WCML services easily, and most important of all at Edinburgh Gateway for a swift tram connection to Edinburgh Airport.

najaB · 19 Jun 2017

route:oxford said:
Would terminating at platform 0 at Haymarket be helpful?

If you've managed to find a path all the way to Haymarket, you might as well go to Waverley since that's where a large percentage of people want to go.

St Andrews link - New Report for StARlink

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