Economic Case for the Far North Line

[class26]

Touche!

More politics. I suggest the opposite. If you look at Norway, which has far superior infrastructure than the UK, the railways are much better in rural areas in general. Critically though, land reform and the pattern of land ownership means that "remote" areas are much more populated making the whole picture balance much more.

One of the interesting differences between most representatives in the Scottish Parliament is that there is a genuine understanding of cost and value beyond financial measures which is why there is a different approach in Scotland.

Sorry, wasn`t meaning to be political and I do understand the Scottish parliament interprets things a tad different (for the better) to how we do down south

 

[najaB]

I'm not sure the Conwy Valley isn't even more of a basket case, and that's been fixed up loads of times now.

I dare say that the conversation is had at least internally within Network Rail every time it washes out.

 

[lancastrian]

But if you (like me) live in Greater Manchester, your bus pass also gives you free train travel!

I know that thank you, but if you are travelling outside Greater Manchester, then no help. My wife and I visit family in Leyland, Preston, Lytham, Lancaster. Also travel for pleasure to Chester, Southport, Clitheroe and Harrogate. We would travel by train for Skipton, but still waiting for the Skipton & Colne line to be reopened.

In many cases, the proposed replacement will be unarguably better value than the existing provision. It may even provide a better absolute standard of service. BUT many of us oppose such changes because replacements are so much more vulnerable to slow death.

That was the real problem after all the Beeching closures. It usually took less then 3 years before all replacements were cancelled stopped or run down as not to be viable. The same with all rural closures, shops, banks, post office, etc. All of these along with what is left of our rail system in rural areas should be supported by central government, at no less than a 2/3 hourly service each day. Just because the far North Line currently has decent, reliable alternative bus service NOW, does not mean it will have within 3 years of any closure, and then once again the local people wont have a Public Transport System to use.

 

[swaldman]

Arrant nonsense?

The fact is that if you actually want to travel to the highlands for reasons other than the journey itself, you would drive/take a coach because it is much faster.
It's 3 hours instead of 4.

I spent some years living in Orkney, and regularly used to take the train south despite it being slower than the bus. It's a difference between 3 hours sitting on a bus with another seat just in front of your nose, and 3 3/4 hours sitting on a train at a table, getting some work done or watching a film or whatever. Also, on one out of the two times I took the bus it broke down. At least the 158s are reliable

 

[Highland37]

I travelled Ardgay to Inverness today (after cycling Ullapool to Ardgay.

The 158 was clean and the staff very helpful and we got two bikes on despite having no booking.

On board I was reading a Scotrail magazine which was on about a "railway for the 21st century". To get to that point, all jointed track will need to be replaced and it really is a very rough ride in places. Then there is the noise from the 158 which is too much in the modern age. Engine, fans (is that what is referred to as "air conditioning?") and general wear and tear have left these units in a poor shape despite the nice seats and colours.

 

[najaB]

On board I was reading a Scotrail magazine which was on about a "railway for the 21st century". To get to that point, all jointed track will need to be replaced and it really is a very rough ride in places.

To be fair, a *lot* of the jointed track has been done.

 

[Highland37]

I am looking forward to the rest. With the noise in the 158s and a very bad ride in places it's not too 21st century right now.

 

[InOban]

The past is a foreign country. They do things differently there.

You bet. I was born in Inverness at a time when almost all roads West of the A82/A9 were narrow, twisty single-track roads, many built in the 18th-19th centuries. The overland routes to Skye and the outer isles started with the train to Kyle.
For Skye it would be either ferry and bus, or the daily (I think) macbraynes boat from mallaig which called at Kyle and Raasay on its way to Portree.
For the outer isles, it would be the daily Loch Seaforth to Stornoway. Most cargo came by a weekly boat from the Clyde, supplemented by the 'puffers'. Any cars were deck cargo.
Stations like Achnasheen were important hubs - at least two mailbuses met the train carrying passengers and mail to and from Gordon and Gareloch.

On the Far North line, Lairg was a major hub, with at least three mailbus routes. (It's still the locus for the largest one day sheep sale in Scotland, with the entire output of the NW being sold.) In the herring season, Wick would have generated special priority freight trains. And passengers accepted that, having reached Thurso they would have to transfer to a bus to reach the Orkney ferry at Scrabster.

Hardly anyone had a private car apart from the doctor and the landowners.
So everyone's journey was constructed around the train and ferry times. No Sunday travel, of course.

Now, of course, the general public will only use the train, or the bus, if it operates at times which suit them.
When RoRo ferries were eventually introduced, they used harbours which, except for Oban, have no rail link.
Almost all traffic to Orkney uses the shorter, cheaper, and more frequent service from Gills Bay
No major fishing port has rail access.
Clearly the southern end of the route has the potential to play a significant role in the economy of Inverness, but it is difficult to justify the resources required to sustain the far north. Given that there seems to be continuing use of the freight facilities at Georgemas, and given that most people either drive or get a lift to their station anyway, and that Georgemas is on the hourly bus between Wick and Thurso, my heretical suggestion is that the line should terminate at Georgemas. Georgemas Parkway!

 

[GusB]

To be fair, a *lot* of the jointed track has been done.

I've yet to travel the Far North Line, but the replacement of jointed track does make a hell of a difference. My father's house backs onto the Inverness - Aberdeen line on the outskirts of Nairn and while trains can still be heard passing, it is no longer the case that they can be heard from several miles away. As a passenger, the journey definitely feels much smoother, too.

I am looking forward to the rest. With the noise in the 158s and a very bad ride in places it's not too 21st century right now.

I've made more train journeys in the last month than in the previous five years, and I honestly can't say that I found the 158s to be too bad. I certainly didn't have any issues with the ride quality, but that'll be down to the lack of jointed track, to an extent.

 

[47802]

The past is a foreign country. They do things differently there.

You bet. I was born in Inverness at a time when almost all roads West of the A82/A9 were narrow, twisty single-track roads, many built in the 18th-19th centuries. The overland routes to Skye and the outer isles started with the train to Kyle.
For Skye it would be either ferry and bus, or the daily (I think) macbraynes boat from mallaig which called at Kyle and Raasay on its way to Portree.
For the outer isles, it would be the daily Loch Seaforth to Stornoway. Most cargo came by a weekly boat from the Clyde, supplemented by the 'puffers'. Any cars were deck cargo.
Stations like Achnasheen were important hubs - at least two mailbuses met the train carrying passengers and mail to and from Gordon and Gareloch.

On the Far North line, Lairg was a major hub, with at least three mailbus routes. (It's still the locus for the largest one day sheep sale in Scotland, with the entire output of the NW being sold.) In the herring season, Wick would have generated special priority freight trains. And passengers accepted that, having reached Thurso they would have to transfer to a bus to reach the Orkney ferry at Scrabster.

Hardly anyone had a private car apart from the doctor and the landowners.
So everyone's journey was constructed around the train and ferry times. No Sunday travel, of course.


Now, of course, the general public will only use the train, or the bus, if it operates at times which suit them.
When RoRo ferries were eventually introduced, they used harbours which, except for Oban, have no rail link.
Almost all traffic to Orkney uses the shorter, cheaper, and more frequent service from Gills Bay
No major fishing port has rail access.
Clearly the southern end of the route has the potential to play a significant role in the economy of Inverness, but it is difficult to justify the resources required to sustain the far north. Given that there seems to be continuing use of the freight facilities at Georgemas, and given that most people either drive or get a lift to their station anyway, and that Georgemas is on the hourly bus between Wick and Thurso, my heretical suggestion is that the line should terminate at Georgemas. Georgemas Parkway!

But your not going to save a great deal relatively speaking by closing Georgemas to Thurso and Wick, and will probably loose a significant number of customers so you may as well continue to run certainly to Thurso at least and probably both.

 

[haggishunter]

I could, however, see a suggestion to abandon the line if there was a severe weather event that required a large amount of cash to resolve - e.g. a major storm washed out the line north of Brora or the bridge between Culrain or Invershin got damaged.

That the FNL survived the Feb 1989 washout of the Ness Viaduct under a Tory Government that didn't give a **** about Scotland, far less the North Highlands gives a degree of reassurance that your scenario wouldn't be pardon the pun, the end of the line. Though perhaps it's worth considering at that point the UK Government still had hopes of dumping the whole UK's nuclear waste in a very deep hole at Dounreay! See: http://www.heraldscotland.com/news/11923012.Region_rejects_Nirex_test_bores_under_Dounreay/ .

 

[Highlandspring]

By 1989 the government of the day had already murdered Willie MacRae to prevent the Dounreay waste disposal scheme being derailed so spending a wee bit of cash to keep the railway open when the Ness viaduct was washed away was small beer...

 

[yorksrob]

The past is a foreign country. They do things differently there.

You bet. I was born in Inverness at a time when almost all roads West of the A82/A9 were narrow, twisty single-track roads, many built in the 18th-19th centuries. The overland routes to Skye and the outer isles started with the train to Kyle.
For Skye it would be either ferry and bus, or the daily (I think) macbraynes boat from mallaig which called at Kyle and Raasay on its way to Portree.
For the outer isles, it would be the daily Loch Seaforth to Stornoway. Most cargo came by a weekly boat from the Clyde, supplemented by the 'puffers'. Any cars were deck cargo.
Stations like Achnasheen were important hubs - at least two mailbuses met the train carrying passengers and mail to and from Gordon and Gareloch.

On the Far North line, Lairg was a major hub, with at least three mailbus routes. (It's still the locus for the largest one day sheep sale in Scotland, with the entire output of the NW being sold.) In the herring season, Wick would have generated special priority freight trains. And passengers accepted that, having reached Thurso they would have to transfer to a bus to reach the Orkney ferry at Scrabster.

Hardly anyone had a private car apart from the doctor and the landowners.
So everyone's journey was constructed around the train and ferry times. No Sunday travel, of course.

Now, of course, the general public will only use the train, or the bus, if it operates at times which suit them.
When RoRo ferries were eventually introduced, they used harbours which, except for Oban, have no rail link.
Almost all traffic to Orkney uses the shorter, cheaper, and more frequent service from Gills Bay
No major fishing port has rail access.
Clearly the southern end of the route has the potential to play a significant role in the economy of Inverness, but it is difficult to justify the resources required to sustain the far north. Given that there seems to be continuing use of the freight facilities at Georgemas, and given that most people either drive or get a lift to their station anyway, and that Georgemas is on the hourly bus between Wick and Thurso, my heretical suggestion is that the line should terminate at Georgemas. Georgemas Parkway!

If you're maintaining the route to Georgemas, it seems several magnitudes of pointless to tear up the last, comparatively cheap to maintain sections to Wick and Thurso, and lose direct connections to the town centres.

 

[najaB]

If you're maintaining the route to Georgemas, it seems several magnitudes of pointless to tear up the last, comparatively cheap to maintain sections to Wick and Thurso, and lose direct connections to the town centres.

It's the kind of thing that would've been done in BR's poorly funded days and regretted for years thereafter.

 

[yorksrob]

It's the kind of thing that would've been done in BR's poorly funded days and regretted for years thereafter.

True - the closure of Birmingham Snow Hill springs to mind.

 

[Bletchleyite]

There would be an argument for closing Wick and building the curve to simplify things up there (a shuttle bus could operate Wick-Thurso) - but closing both would be nuts and could only be seen as a means of trying to force closure of the whole thing.

 

[Esker-pades]

Given that Thurso and Wick are some of the biggest stations on the line (in terms of passengers), cutting them off would be fantastically stupid. Only Tain, Invergordon and the stations shared with the Kyle Line south of Dingwall have patronage as high (or higher).

 

[Bletchleyite]

I do agree, I was just talking hypothetically. To me it would make sense to build the curve (and Halkirk station, the closure of which was lunacy when you think what other utterly pointless stations there are on the route) and run Inverness-Thurso-Wick-Thurso-Inverness.

 

[najaB]

There would be an argument for closing Wick and building the curve to simplify things up there (a shuttle bus could operate Wick-Thurso)

If Wick was considerably smaller than Turso I could see that being practical but they pretty much each represent 25% of the population of Caithness.

 

[Bletchleyite]

If Wick was considerably smaller than Turso I could see that being practical but they pretty much each represent 25% of the population of Caithness.

Thurso's demand is higher because of the ferries. But I don't genuinely support that option.

 

[Steamysandy]

The bus from Inverness to Thurso last night had a strong smell of burning according to my contact who was a passenger on board.Several passengers complained to the driver about it.

 

[mcmad]

On board I was reading a Scotrail magazine which was on about a "railway for the 21st century". To get to that point, all jointed track will need to be replaced and it really is a very rough ride in places.

I've bad news for you, the jointed track is here to stay. They only replaced all the rails on the Thurso branch (I think) last year besides many parts are too tight a radius for CWR.

 

[Ben.A.98]

I've bad news for you, the jointed track is here to stay. They only replaced all the rails on the Thurso branch (I think) last year besides many parts are too tight a radius for CWR.

Correct, the whole Thurso branch was re-railed last year.

 

[Highland37]

I've bad news for you, the jointed track is here to stay. They only replaced all the rails on the Thurso branch (I think) last year besides many parts are too tight a radius for CWR.

I know. I wasn't expecting any change to a more modern system.

 

[mcmad]

I know. I wasn't expecting any change to a more modern system.

Confused as to what you are expecting then?

 

[jeemac]

A sort-of on-message observation ...

Over the past few weeks, there has been significant work going on, just on the Inverness side of the former Bunchrew station site. I guess this is probably routine maintenance, as they seem to be taking down a lot of mature trees, but given this is part of the section that used to be double-tracked, is it wishful thinking that this could be preparatory work for a new crossing loop? Does anyone know?

 

[Highlandspring]

Over the past few weeks, there has been significant work going on, just on the Inverness side of the former Bunchrew station site. I guess this is probably routine maintenance, as they seem to be taking down a lot of mature trees, but given this is part of the section that used to be double-tracked, is it wishful thinking that this could be preparatory work for a new crossing loop? Does anyone know?

Definitely not connected to any new loop. The Lentran loop is, however, going through the very early stages of the GRIP sausage machine at the moment.

 

[BRX]

It occurred to me during a recent trip north that there are now huge cruise ships coming into Invergordon on a frequent basis, and Invergordon has a railway station. I assume that these ships deposit large numbers of tourists who get on large numbers of coaches and the railway entirely fails to exploit this market?

 

[najaB]

It occurred to me during a recent trip north that there are now huge cruise ships coming into Invergordon on a frequent basis, and Invergordon has a railway station. I assume that these ships deposit large numbers of tourists who get on large numbers of coaches and the railway entirely fails to exploit this market?

Not entirely, but it would be difficult to add additional services for the odd days when ships are in port. They would need to be Q schedules.

 

[Highlandspring]

The vast majority of cruise passengers are generally doing prebooked shore excursions to places like Urquhart Castle, Culloden, Eilean Donan Castle* and Fort William. They require a very high degree of reliability in being able to return folk to the ship at the right time. Neither of these characteristics make the railway a particularly suitable medium for transporting cruise passengers..


*many of whom then go on to Kyle of Lochalsh and are returned to Inverness by train, so the railway does get their business in a roundabout sort of way.