Railwatch 077 - October 1998

Scotland

By David Hansen

Bus wayThe Scottish transport White Paper was published a few days after the English one. An initial read indicates that it is largely aimed towards buses. Although there are parts of Scotland not served by rail, often the result of deliberate government action in the 1960s, it remains a fact that rail is far more able to get motorists out of their cars than buses. Comparing the two white papers it appears that the Scottish Office have been watering down the UK proposals, just as they did with the Road Traffic Reduction Act Guidelines.

RDS Scotland will be responding to the Scottish and UK white papers. People sometimes forget that RDS Scotland has to respond to separate Scottish government publications as well as a separate Railtrack Network Management Statement. We are the only branch that has to do this, although the Welsh branches and London will have some similar tasks with devolution. With the Scottish Parliament we need to set up the sort of organisation RDS has for lobbying Westminster, although on a smaller scale.

Emergency The West Coast Main Line by Lockerbie was washed away by rain at the end of July. Railtrack is to be congratulated for very hard work which resulted in the line being restored in a few days. However getting passengers past the obstruction showed how there is now no spare margin on the railways. The alternative route to Glasgow via Dumfries has been run down to the extent that it seemed impossible to divert more than a handful of Glasgow trains that way. Instead, passengers were taken by bus to Glasgow. The alternative route to Edinburgh was closed in 1969, by a Labour government, which condemned passengers to a three-hour Carlisle-Edinburgh trip on a bus. These extremely poor alternative arrangements do not bode well for what will happen when the West Coast Main Line is upgraded. At the very least it must be possible to divert the whole Glasgow service via Dumfries before the work starts.

Rampant roads Despite Government claims of promoting alternatives to the roads some local authorities seem to be carrying on in the old way. One example is not protecting the rail approach routes to the Dornoch Bridge in a new structure plan, something we have fought. Another is allowing the main hospital in Edinburgh to be moved from the city to a field in the middle of nowhere. This is happening in a city which claims to be one of the most advanced councils in the UK.

The new stations at Drumfrochar and Dalgety Bay are doing useful business. During the summer Railtrack was rebuilding a tunnel as part of the refurbishment of a canal for the millenium. This severed services between Anniesland and Westerton. As an alternative the Glasgow Queen Street High Level-Maryhill was extended to Milngavie. Hopefully this sort of extension can be continued until the curve is built to take these trains to Anniesland.

The Milngavie line was singled some years ago, despite protests that this was more dangerous and would prevent service expansion. ScotRail said at the time that singling would not prevent an increase in service frequencies. Times change and now Strathclyde Passenger Transport Executive is considering reinstating double track in order to allow more frequent services.

Well done ScotRail ScotRail is to be congratulated on reducing the price of Cheap Day Return tickets in the spring. Most other train operators have not reduced turn-up-and-go fares. Instead the passenger must book weeks ahead and indicate which trains they will travel on. These and a host of other restrictions are in marked contrast to using a car, where one turns up and goes. Well done ScotRail. Let's see the other train operators take this initiative up.

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