Tweed Valley railway: Plan for proposed route to be revealed

[A0wen]

As one brought up with a love of maps, both old and modern, I wonder how projects like this ever draw breath.

Armchair experts who have only ever built a Hornby OO gauge layout, something with Lego or at a push assembled a garden shed. From there they deduce that "it can't be that difficult", add on as you've alluded to, a romanticism with old railway lines (many of which closed before their proponents first drew breath) together with a - delete as applicable - deluded / unrealistic / over-optimistic view of how the world works and why the old adage of "build it and they will come" really isn't the basis on which to build a railway line and I think you can see how such things come about. Add in the fact that computers and the internet mean that any clown can put together some pretty powerpoint slides, take some photos, do a bit of photoshopping and put it on a website and make it look vaguely reputable. Go back to the 1980s and these guys were stuck with a 'John Bull printing set' (that they'd been given for Christmas) and could only produce a few leaflets which they'd have to advertise in a small ad and rely on somebody sending them a 'stamped addressed envelope' (remember those ?) for distribution.

 

[Killingworth]

Armchair experts who have only ever built a Hornby OO gauge layout, something with Lego or at a push assembled a garden shed. From there they deduce that "it can't be that difficult", add on as you've alluded to, a romanticism with old railway lines (many of which closed before their proponents first drew breath) together with a - delete as applicable - deluded / unrealistic / over-optimistic view of how the world works and why the old adage of "build it and they will come" really isn't the basis on which to build a railway line and I think you can see how such things come about. Add in the fact that computers and the internet mean that any clown can put together some pretty powerpoint slides, take some photos, do a bit of photoshopping and put it on a website and make it look vaguely reputable. Go back to the 1980s and these guys were stuck with a 'John Bull printing set' (that they'd been given for Christmas) and could only produce a few leaflets which they'd have to advertise in a small ad and rely on somebody sending them a 'stamped addressed envelope' (remember those ?) for distribution.

Be fair, I recall having to drive through London when the M25 was still half built. That certainly made users come. After a very long, over budget, wait the Elizabeth line is doing similarly for railways.

However, the Borders Dreamline is a long, long way from populations sufficient to ever attract a fraction of the numbers necessary to justify construction. I wonder how today's meeting will go.

 

[A0wen]

Be fair, I recall having to drive through London when the M25 was still half built. That certainly made users come. After a very long, over budget, wait the Elizabeth line is doing similarly for railways.

However, the Borders Dreamline is a long, long way from populations sufficient to ever attract a fraction of the numbers necessary to justify construction. I wonder how today's meeting will go.

Bit in bold - that's a TBC - we need to see the impact on the usage figures of the Met/Circle/H&C and Central Lines first - are those figures in the public domain ?

 

[Cheshire Scot]

Looking at the old mapping, it does seem strange that a north facing curve was not built when there was open land available, as presumably Berwick was the traffic objective rather than Tweedmouth.

Yes, a north facing curve would seem entielry logical. Looking at my 1962 timetable there were just two trains per day in each direction between St Boswells and Berwick with reversal at Tweedmouth consuming 7 mins (or in one case 9 mins), plus a further two trains each way between St Boswells and Kelso. I don't think have been any re-openings of lines which 'enjoyed' such an infrequent service when open in earlier years.

 

[Hagbard Celine]

And we still haven't got past the road being built on the trackbed at Melrose.

The A6091 is only on the trackbed for 200m immediately to the east of the old station. The minor road to Newstead occupies the trackbed for 400m further east but there is very little traffic on it.

It looks like there is room immediately to the north of the Dingleton Road bridge for a single track railway. See https://goo.gl/maps/PigLBktFHuJB8GVM9 This might require demolition of the old up station building, or alternatively cut back the platform to its orginal width. As built Melrose station had 4 tracks between the platforms with the up line adjacent to the canopy supports -



The problem then is what to do with the High Road immediately to the east....


All of which is moot. Any chance of a Hawick extension has vanished with home working. The local cooncillors are complaining about there being no staff at desks in HQ at Newtown, to where a fair number used to commute from Hawick.

Back on topic, rather than connect to the ECML via Kelso why not reinstate the Berwickshire Railway and go over the under-used Leaderfoot viaduct, via Earlston and Duns, meeting the ECML at Reston Junction thereby justifying that white elephant!

(For the avoidance of doubt this is not a serious suggestion.)