New rail lines in Scotland

[daodao]

£10 million seems a helluva lot for this.

I'm also perplexed that government funding of £10 million has been allocated to explore the case for extending the Borders line from Tweedbank to Carlisle, particularly beyond Hawick. Passenger demand south of Hawick is likely to be minimal, given that there are only 6 buses per day on Mon-Sat (just 3 on Sundays) on Borders Buses route X95 between Hawick and Carlisle. The only significant intermediate town is Langholm, which is served by this bus route, unlike the former Waverley main line, so a reinstated railway couldn't replace the bus route fully.

 

[AlastairFraser]

I'm also perplexed that government funding of £10 million has been allocated to explore the case for extending the Borders line from Tweedbank to Carlisle, particularly beyond Hawick. Passenger demand south of Hawick is likely to be minimal, given that there are only 6 buses per day on Mon-Sat (just 3 on Sundays) on Borders Buses route X95 between Hawick and Carlisle. The only significant intermediate town is Langholm, which is served by this bus route, unlike the former Waverley main line, so a reinstated railway couldn't replace the bus route fully.

It's about through services too.

Providing more capacity Carlisle to Edinburgh (and implicitly for Carlisle to Glasgow passenger and freight services) without upgrading the WCML north of Carlisle (which has reached the point where the cheap interventions have mostly been done and more capacity improvements will cost a lot) is a decent goal.

This does mean that the line from Tweedbank to Carlisle would have to be built to >100mph mainline standards at least, and probably some upgrading on the existing Tweedbank to Edinburgh section would be needed, but you can then combine the increased capacity with better local connectivity for the people of the Borders and increased tourist potential.

 

[snookertam]

If we were to have any feasibility studies, I’d suggest they were put into the likely impact of improved rail services around Dundee, Aberdeen and Inverness, with infrastructure improvements explored to ensure there were robust local services in place rather than the unreliable schedules that operate over lines that barely have capacity for them.

 

[stevieinselby]

I'm also perplexed that government funding of £10 million has been allocated to explore the case for extending the Borders line from Tweedbank to Carlisle, particularly beyond Hawick. Passenger demand south of Hawick is likely to be minimal, given that there are only 6 buses per day on Mon-Sat (just 3 on Sundays) on Borders Buses route X95 between Hawick and Carlisle. The only significant intermediate town is Langholm, which is served by this bus route, unlike the former Waverley main line, so a reinstated railway couldn't replace the bus route fully.

The railway line would be for long-distance passengers more than local services, and the railways really aren't bothered about whether the X95 continues to be needed or not. The main use cases would be:

1. Connecting the borders region to Carlisle for southward connections, opening up the region to further business and tourism by providing better links to England.
2. Providing an alternative to the WCML to give additional capacity to Edinburgh. While this could be used to keep freight off the main line and allow fast passenger services to make better use of the capacity there, I'm not sure how helpful that would be given that the vast majority of freight is heading to Glasgow and its environs or further north, and so a line taking it to Edinburgh might not be so useful.

A new railway line wouldn't necessarily follow the same route as the previous line. There is a lot to be said for running it along the A7 corridor instead, which would (a) allow it to serve Langholm, and (ii) be a shorter and faster route than the sinuous alignment used before. And while a short section of tunnel might be needed past Glenrief Rig (although with electric traction there is less penalty in having gradients), on the old route Whitrope Tunnel has suffered a major collapse and so would need significant work before it could be re-used (and looks like it might need reboreing for an electrified line anyway as clearances look tight).

Now whether those two use cases, plus connecting Hawick and Langholm to the rail network, do stack up given the likely high cost of building the new line is a question I can't answer. It does feel like there may be better uses of the money elsewhere, but if it unlocks significant capacity on the WCML then it may be worth considering.

 

[Bill57p9]

IMHO a far easier (and cheaper) way to unlock WCML capacity would be to make more use of the Glasgow & South Western route via Dumfries and Kilmarnock.

 

[stevieinselby]

IMHO a far easier (and cheaper) way to unlock WCML capacity would be to make more use of the Glasgow & South Western route via Dumfries and Kilmarnock.

Potentially, although the disadvantage to that plan is that the Waverley route to Edinburgh is a couple of miles shorter than the WCML route (maybe 4 or 5 miles if taking the A7 line rather than the original route through Riccarton Junction) and so, while it probably won't be quite such a fast route, it will still be competitive on time, and as a new build it could be specified for a good speed throughout ... but the G&SW is 14 miles longer than the WCML route to Glasgow and a lot slower, with a line speed of no more than 70mph all the way from Dumfries to Glasgow, making it a less attractive route. While it could potentially take more freight off the WCML than it does, I don't see it having much value beyond that.