Borders Railway - Now Open

[The Ham]

125,000 trips in the first month is impressive but I agree it is meaningless and gives absolutely no indication of the future success of this service

numbers such as has been quoted will not be maintained and anyone who thinks they will be are quite frankly living in cloud cuckoo land

I do believe that that the service will be a relatively popular service

but after 6 or 12 months and a more detailed breakdown in exactly what journeys are being made and from where to where will determine the frequency of future timetables

There's two sides to it though, yes there are a lot of people who are traveling on it because it is a reopening/there are steam services/because it is there*.

However as they drop away it could well be that more people start to use the service as they realise that it is reliable/faster/cheaper than driving*. Although some who come for the above reasons may then decide that they like the area and travel there for leisure purposes several times over the year.

(*delete as appropriate)

As such I wouldn't be surprised if we saw passenger numbers being somewhere close to the 800,000 to 1,100,000 mark over the first year (i.e. higher than predictions but not quite as high as would be expected if we only use the first months figures).

There is very little demand south of Hawick because other through routes are quicker for long distance traffic.

There is also unlikely to be demand for more than 2tph south of Gorebridge so additional double track is not going to be of any use except in increasing reliability (which seems to have been pretty good in the first month).

The whole point of this reopening is to create a branch line for commuting into Edinburgh. That is what the demand is for and that is what will drive custom.

It may not suit enthusiasts who yearn for through trains to St Pancras but daily commuting from new build housing estates in Dalkeith to office jobs at the Gyle is what will make the line a success.

Although I agree (given that there is scope to provide longer trains) that redoubling isn't too much of a concern just yet I'm not convinced that a through route is as dead as you suggest.

That is because although it maybe quicker to get from Edinburgh to Carlisle that isn't the full picture as it could still be quicker to take a slower train if the frequency isn't great. It maybe that there are better connections with the slower trains from other areas meaning that they provide a quicker door to door journey than taking the faster route. Price and potential new developments could also play a part.

Yes it is unlikely to happen soon, but I tend to take the view of "never say never", especially given how much rail passenger growth has been going up in recent years making the track that we do have busier and busier.

 

[Starmill]

Quick trip this afternoon with 158 725 in a very tatty internal state. Wifi fitted but no repairs to carpet or seat cushions?

Thoroughly pleasing nonetheless for the journey, it was quite full too with about 30 people onboard after Gorebridge on the way to Tweedbank. Sadly we had to wait for nearly 20 minutes at Stow when we'd not normally be booked to call there to allow the steam to pass (well, I say steam...)

The car park at Tweedbank is FULL! there are directions to an overflow car park.

I think it's a shame they didn't design in some space for a small station building. I think in time this station will justify a ticket office and it's very cold waiting in the shelter at Tweedbank, which although it does have 'skirting board' it doesn't reach anywhere near the floor!

There were some elderley people trying to collect tickets at the single Parkeon TVM - unsuccessfully because it couldn't read their card, no surprises there.

My viewpoint hasn't really changed. Solid achievement in a very good location and serving a true purpose. A shame it has basically no bells and whistles (refurbished trains, more double track, ticket offices and indoor waiting rooms etc.) but some of those might be added later and it's fantastic that the trains are here.

 

[Altnabreac]

Although I agree (given that there is scope to provide longer trains) that redoubling isn't too much of a concern just yet I'm not convinced that a through route is as dead as you suggest.

That is because although it maybe quicker to get from Edinburgh to Carlisle that isn't the full picture as it could still be quicker to take a slower train if the frequency isn't great. It maybe that there are better connections with the slower trains from other areas meaning that they provide a quicker door to door journey than taking the faster route. Price and potential new developments could also play a part.

Yes it is unlikely to happen soon, but I tend to take the view of "never say never", especially given how much rail passenger growth has been going up in recent years making the track that we do have busier and busier.

There is absolutely no, zero, zilch, nada justification for reopening south of Hawick.

There is no intermediate population demand of any significant size.
There is no commuting market.
There is no leisure demand driver.
There is no development opportunity.
There is no regeneration opportunity.
There is no point.

It would only serve the Borders - England Inter City demand which is a relatively small market.

Post HS2 Scotland even that small market would barely find it quicker than going via Edinburgh.

A Hawick extension may well happen in 5-10 years.

Redoubling north of Gorebridge and 4tph northwards may well happen too.

But the Waverley line will never ever go south of Hawick ever again.

 

[furnessvale]

There is absolutely no, zero, zilch, nada justification for reopening south of Hawick.

There is no intermediate population demand of any significant size.
There is no commuting market.
There is no leisure demand driver.
There is no development opportunity.
There is no regeneration opportunity.
There is no point.

It would only serve the Borders - England Inter City demand which is a relatively small market.

Post HS2 Scotland even that small market would barely find it quicker than going via Edinburgh.

A Hawick extension may well happen in 5-10 years.

Redoubling north of Gorebridge and 4tph northwards may well happen too.

But the Waverley line will never ever go south of Hawick ever again.

A lot of nevers in that answer!

I agree that there is no intermediate passenger traffic to justify anything but there is just one, remote, possibility.

If, and its a big if, Anglo Scottish traffic grew to the extent that existing lines ran out of capacity this forms a fairly well established formation for additional capacity. Add in Borders timber traffic and who knows?

Very remote and not in my lifetime but never say never.

 

[edwin_m]

There's two sides to it though, yes there are a lot of people who are traveling on it because it is a reopening/there are steam services/because it is there*.

However as they drop away it could well be that more people start to use the service as they realise that it is reliable/faster/cheaper than driving*. Although some who come for the above reasons may then decide that they like the area and travel there for leisure purposes several times over the year.

(*delete as appropriate)

As such I wouldn't be surprised if we saw passenger numbers being somewhere close to the 800,000 to 1,100,000 mark over the first year (i.e. higher than predictions but not quite as high as would be expected if we only use the first months figures).

There's another effect that takes even longer to kick in, which is people moving to live in the catchment because the train service provides them with a more acceptable commute than otherwise. And yet another one of developers choosing to build houses there because of a good train service.

These two will take a few years to build up to a steady level. Hopefully, assuming demand continues to be strong, by that time Scotrail can get hold of some more DMUs to strengthen the busiest workings.

 

[najaB]

These two will take a few years to build up to a steady level. Hopefully, assuming demand continues to be strong, by that time Scotrail can get hold of some more DMUs to strengthen the busiest workings.

It's more a matter of retaining DMUs that will be freed up by electrification.

 

[Pinza-C55]

There is absolutely no, zero, zilch, nada justification for reopening south of Hawick.

There is no intermediate population demand of any significant size.
There is no commuting market.
There is no leisure demand driver.
There is no development opportunity.
There is no regeneration opportunity.
There is no point.

It would only serve the Borders - England Inter City demand which is a relatively small market.

Post HS2 Scotland even that small market would barely find it quicker than going via Edinburgh.

A Hawick extension may well happen in 5-10 years.

Redoubling north of Gorebridge and 4tph northwards may well happen too.

But the Waverley line will never ever go south of Hawick ever again.

I hope you are wrong. I think I will be right.

 

[Altnabreac]

The reason I have such scepticism of any reopening south of Hawick is from having worked with several of these projects over the years.

All new Transport schemes in Scotland are subject to STAG appraisal (Scottish Transport Appraisal Guidance).

You can read the basics here:
http://www.transportscotland.gov.uk/stag

The most important concept to grasp is:

STAG is objective-led rather than solution-led.

In this context that means that you don't say "What benefits would opening a railway from Hawick to Carlisle have?" and then make a list.

What you do instead is ask "What unmet / suboptimal transport needs do people in the Central Borders have?" and then look at different schemes that might meet these needs.

So if we imagine we are doing a STAG pre-appraisal looking at the travel needs from Central Borders - England we would first quantify the demand.

Who wants to travel to London, Manchester, Newcastle and from where.

Then we would look at different options to meet that need.

Through ticketing from Tweedbank to Edinburgh Airport.
Better parking at Berwick upon Tweed.
More efficient connections from the last London - Edinburgh trains to Tweedbank.
Faster buses from Hawick - Carlisle.
New bus service from Peebles - Lockerbie.
Road improvements on the A68 over Carter Bar.
More coach services from Jedburgh - Newcastle.
New minibus service with bike trailer from Hawick to Kielder for mountain bikers.
New railway from Hawick - Carlisle.

You then appraise the costs and benefits of all these options and eventually come up with a preferred scheme.

What we would quickly all see is that south of Hawick you have a very large cost (little change out of £500m) and a very small benefit (slightly faster journey for Galashiels - London).

Hawick - Carlisle wouldn't make it out of Option Sifting & Development.

A few people on here have mentioned lack of cross border capacity on the main Edinburgh / Glasgow - Carlisle route as a potential justification.

If we do a STAG appraisal of that then the options Waverley line is competing with include:

New High Speed Line Carstairs - Lockerbie
More, longer freight loops at Beattock etc
4 tracking sections of WCML
Gauge clearing GSW to send more freight via Dumfries
Gauge clearing ECML
More ECML capacity through a signalling upgrade etc

Again I would be confident that one / all of the other options would offer a higher BCR in addressing the same transport need.

What anyone arguing for Hawick - Carlisle needs to identify is an unmet transport need for which reopening that line is the best value solution.

My contention is that such a transport need simply does not exist.

 

[47271]

No disrespect to Pinza-C55 but I see that I gave an approval to their last post simply on account of being on a train when I read it and lurching to make me press the button!

Anyway, I agree with the sentiment but, like Altnabreac, can't remotely see the business case.

On to Hawick by all means, but the population south of there is so sparse that, unless we experience a massive increase in cross border traffic such that all currently available routes are overwhelmed to unimagined levels then it isn't going to happen.

Never mind cross border, there are plenty of other significant internal Scottish long distance routes that require more urgent attention to cope with demand within the remotely forseeable future. I live on the Highland Main Line, so I know...

They have larger populations at their ends than the Borders line and, shockingly to those apparently already frustrated by the new Borders infrastructure in matter of weeks, have greater proportions of single track operation to contend with.

Leave it in peace now to make a solid success of itself serving and regenerating its catchment area toward Edinburgh, there's plenty else to think about for the next few years.

 

[snowball]

No disrespect to Pinza-C55 but I see that I gave an approval to their last post simply on account of being on a train when I read it and lurching to make me press the button!

Is there an approve button on this forum? I've never noticed it - nor anything saying how many approvals a post has received.

 

[47271]

Is there an approve button on this forum? I've never noticed it - nor anything saying how many approvals a post has received.

Nothing to do with the Borders or my opinions, but a good technical point...

I use the Tapatalk app on my mobile for this forum, I think only because it installed itself a couple of years ago in preference to the website and it seems handy enough.

Bottom left on each post I read there's a 'reply' arrow and 'big thumb' which I take to indicate approval. Just before I wrote my last I noticed that my handle appeared next to the thumb below Pinza-C55's post. I assumed that I hit it accidentally, but equally I've no disagreement with what that poster said!

 

[LeylandLen]

Surely the political state of Scotland and potential population growth of Edinburgh Aberdeen etc ( we live longer, general growth of population , better climate ), should be considered as to whether there is a new slower direct line from Carlisle via Tweedbank to Edinburgh ? More freight by rail that way would enable faster trains to use WCML to Edinburgh especially if HS2 built. We , as consumers , use and need retail parks and supermarkets , many items transported by rail from England . The Settle and Carlisle takes a lot of freight and at present it has to mix with passenger traffic after Carlisle.

 

[Pinza-C55]

Quick trip this afternoon with 158 725 in a very tatty internal state. Wifi fitted but no repairs to carpet or seat cushions?

Thoroughly pleasing nonetheless for the journey, it was quite full too with about 30 people onboard after Gorebridge on the way to Tweedbank. Sadly we had to wait for nearly 20 minutes at Stow when we'd not normally be booked to call there to allow the steam to pass (well, I say steam...)

The car park at Tweedbank is FULL! there are directions to an overflow car park.

I think it's a shame they didn't design in some space for a small station building. I think in time this station will justify a ticket office and it's very cold waiting in the shelter at Tweedbank, which although it does have 'skirting board' it doesn't reach anywhere near the floor!

There were some elderley people trying to collect tickets at the single Parkeon TVM - unsuccessfully because it couldn't read their card, no surprises there.

My viewpoint hasn't really changed. Solid achievement in a very good location and serving a true purpose. A shame it has basically no bells and whistles (refurbished trains, more double track, ticket offices and indoor waiting rooms etc.) but some of those might be added later and it's fantastic that the trains are here.

"I think it's a shame they didn't design in some space for a small station building"

Maybe they are thinking further ahead ?

 

[Altnabreac]

Surely the political state of Scotland and potential population growth of Edinburgh Aberdeen etc ( we live longer, general growth of population , better climate ), should be considered as to whether there is a new slower direct line from Carlisle via Tweedbank to Edinburgh ? More freight by rail that way would enable faster trains to use WCML to Edinburgh especially if HS2 built. We , as consumers , use and need retail parks and supermarkets , many items transported by rail from England . The Settle and Carlisle takes a lot of freight and at present it has to mix with passenger traffic after Carlisle.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glasgow_South_Western_Line

See the suggestion from the Freight Transport Association to Gauge Clear it here:
http://www.gov.scot/Resource/0042/00422813.pdf

Might cost a few quid but a hell of a lot cheaper than rebuilding Hawick - Carlisle.

 

[clc]

Does anyone know if there are any structures north of Gorebridge that aren't wide enough to accommodate double tracking?

 

[Altnabreac]

Does anyone know if there are any structures north of Gorebridge that aren't wide enough to accommodate double tracking?

I think the main issue is Hardengreen Viaduct which is new built and definitely single track. I will be going to Tweedbank later today though so will have a look for any other problems.

 

[geoffk]

Is Hardengreen Viaduct wide enough for double track? (I think this has been answered by Altnabreac). Very short-sighted if true.

 

[The Ham]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glasgow_South_Western_Line

See the suggestion from the Freight Transport Association to Gauge Clear it here:
http://www.gov.scot/Resource/0042/00422813.pdf

Might cost a few quid but a hell of a lot cheaper than rebuilding Hawick - Carlisle.

I never said that it would be the next thing to happen, I said it may not be as dead as you were suggesting (i.e. it's never going to happen). A lot can change in 50 years (as an example see the Boarders Line).

 

[Altnabreac]

I never said that it would be the next thing to happen, I said it may not be as dead as you were suggesting (i.e. it's never going to happen). A lot can change in 50 years (as an example see the Boarders Line).

My point is that all the things that Hawick - Carlisle might do (more freight capacity, faster Galashiels - London journeys) can be achieved more efficiently or cheaply by another solution (GSW gauge clearing, new high speed line).

So until someone suggests a purpose for Hawick - Carlisle that can't be better achieved by another scheme I will remain unconvinced.

 

[HowardGWR]

So until someone suggests a purpose for Hawick - Carlisle that can't be better achieved by another scheme I will remain unconvinced.

What about logging? I thought there were quite a few forests near the formation?

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

What about logging? I thought there were quite a few forests near the formation?

Being somewhat at a loose end this morning and wishing to pose a mathematical question, I ask a solution of the following conundrum:-

If the total infrastructural costs of a rebuilt railway line from Hawick to Carilsle was compared to the total timber value of the trees from the forests mentioned above by a fully loaded a train carrying the same, how many of these timber-laden trains would be required to ensure a break-even point (ignoring inflationary connected costs)?

 

[The Ham]

My point is that all the things that Hawick - Carlisle might do (more freight capacity, faster Galashiels - London journeys) can be achieved more efficiently or cheaply by another solution (GSW gauge clearing, new high speed line).

So until someone suggests a purpose for Hawick - Carlisle that can't be better achieved by another scheme I will remain unconvinced.

Of course, however there could be a perfect storm resulting in a large numbers of freight trains needing to travel between Liverpool and the eastern part of Edinburgh as well as a newtown development happening near to the route of the closed line as well the cost of car ownership rising quickly for a prolonged period of time as well as a few other factors. All of which means that the reopening of the line COULD be the best possible solution.

You appear to think that I think that it could be viable for it to open sometime (which for the record I am not), likewise I am not saying that give it enough time and it will open. Rather I am saying that just because there is no obvious case for it now it doesn't mean that there will not be at some point, although I do also understand that there may never be a good case for it to reopen.

50 years ago railways were in a very different place to where they are now and as such past performance is no guarantee of future success or failure.

 

[route:oxford]

Being somewhat at a loose end this morning and wishing to pose a mathematical question, I ask a solution of the following conundrum:-

If the total infrastructural costs of a rebuilt railway line from Hawick to Carilsle was compared to the total timber value of the trees from the forests mentioned above by a fully loaded a train carrying the same, how many of these timber-laden trains would be required to ensure a break-even point (ignoring inflationary connected costs)?

The break-even point wouldn't really matter then - trees just keep on growing.

 

[najaB]

...trees just keep on growing.

Of course that requires them to be cut down no faster than they keep growing.

 

[HarleyDavidson]

I think it wood be a good idea to reinstate it now, instead of lumbering along doing nothing. Get the timber off the roads.

 

[najaB]

I think it wood be a good idea to reinstate it now, instead of lumbering along doing nothing. Get the timber off the roads.

So you propose upgrading the branch line to a trunk root?

 

[HarleyDavidson]

You could say that.

 

[Altnabreac]

Of course, however there could be a perfect storm resulting in a large numbers of freight trains needing to travel between Liverpool and the eastern part of Edinburgh as well as a newtown development happening near to the route of the closed line as well the cost of car ownership rising quickly for a prolonged period of time as well as a few other factors. All of which means that the reopening of the line COULD be the best possible solution.

You appear to think that I think that it could be viable for it to open sometime (which for the record I am not), likewise I am not saying that give it enough time and it will open. Rather I am saying that just because there is no obvious case for it now it doesn't mean that there will not be at some point, although I do also understand that there may never be a good case for it to reopen.

50 years ago railways were in a very different place to where they are now and as such past performance is no guarantee of future success or failure.

Ok. Agreed in some weird future it might happen if an independent Scotland decides to create a new capital Brasilia style underneath the Shankend viaduct then maybe it will reopen.

Otherwise probably not.

 

[edwin_m]

I think it wood be a good idea to reinstate it now, instead of lumbering along doing nothing. Get the timber off the roads.

But the axe hasn't been used since 1968. Must be a bit rusty by now.

 

[HowardGWR]

Do I gather I've been barking up the wrong tree?

Actually I did read an article a while back about opening the southern part of the Waverley for forestry product movements and I thought it worth mentioning. The Settle and Carlisle gets used for this and part justifies keeping that line.