If a new Kilmarnock station with access to the A77 and opportunity for a Park & Ride is what is required (and I agree it could have value) then surely a new Hurlford station is a much better option than Queens Drive?
Why? The advantage of Queens Drive was that there was land available. It is also very close to the A77. Hurlford is further away plus exit from it from a traffic point of view might have been more difficult.
It's all academic anyway, because the land earmarked has been put to other use.
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Like all organisations, they have their faults and their share of oddball members, but without their influence over the years I believe you would be looking at a different railway today and probably much less railway than we have.
Eccentricity one can almost cope with but as one senior railwayman once remarked "going round drawing silly little lines on maps wont get us a re-opened railway".
In Scotland it is particularly irritating as these people never consult with anyone about their plans so when they make announcements it all appears as some mega project that would eat up the complete GDP of the UK. I wonder if in fact they are more at home on Sodor.
Some of the ideas have merit but they work in a world where they forget that only a very tiny percentage of journeys for most people out of the cities is by rail, that rail is very pricey to use unless you book umpteen months in advance and that many lines sadly should simply not have been built so why perpetuate re-opening them. They don't get some of the drivers that effect the economy and some are so big that they are unlikely to change.
We sadly live in a society that with regard to planning is very short term, often based around terms of office and of course so many alignments have been built over it is crazy to try and re-instate them.