Railwatch 081 - October 1999

Scotland

By David Hansen

Frequency boost The highlight of the winter timetable in Scotland is a train every 15 minutes between Edinburgh and Glasgow. This should have consisted entirely of class 170s, but these are late from the builder. Until all the class 170s arrive, some services are being operated by 158s. The full timetable, featuring a three-car 170 every 15 minutes, represents a 50% increase in capacity over a four-car 158 every 30 minutes in the old timetable. Croy has gained a train an hour to Edinburgh. It is a railhead for Cumbernauld, widely publicised at the time of its building for its huge road network. Falkirk High and Linlithgow have double the number of fast trains they used to have.

Opportunity knocks The Glasgow- Falkirk-Grahamston service has been diverted to Stirling, giving a 30 minute frequency local service to Glasgow. RDS calls for government and the railways to extend this service to Alloa and Dunfermline. The Glasgow-Cumbernauld service is being extended to Falkirk Grahamston to replace the diverted service. This extension restores services north of Cumbernauld and will provide many new journey opportunities.

Refurbished trains As they are released by 170s, the class 158s are to be refurbished with new seats. In the summer 2000 timetable 158s will run through from the central belt to the north of Inverness lines, speeding up services on these lines. The refurbishment will eliminate the first class area. Amazingly the refurbishment will not provide the same number of cycle spaces or luggage space as the trains the 158s will replace. In view of the large amount of luggage and the small number of passengers on these lines it would make sense to provide a flexible area in the refurbishment, using at least one window on each side of one coach. This would tailor these trains to the custom on offer.

New lines The extension of services to Larkhall and Glasgow Queen Street High Level services to Anniesland, which are related, continue to plod through the planning stage. The Larkhall trains will run through to the north side, boosting the service frequency through Central Low Level. The Edinburgh CrossRail scheme is at much the same stage.

New stationDunfermline Queen Margaret station should have opened with the winter timetable, but has been delayed. It will now open early in 2000. Because of the late delivery of the class 170s the resulting cascade is also late. Not all services in Fife will now be formed of modern trains, until later in 2000. So that they are fast enough to stop at Queen Margaret and keep to time, the class 117 trains are to have their middle car, which has the only toilet, removed as a stop gap. Dunfermline station, formerly Dunfermline Lower, is to be renamed Dunfermline Town when the new station opens.

Waverley refurbishment Short-term refurbishment of this station continues. Generally it is a great improvement. However, Railtrack has made cycle parking at the station far less convenient than it was. Do they know that ScotRail, the Council and government all say they want to encourage cycling? The plastic sheets that replaced the holes in the roof are beginning to fail, as demonstrated by the rain this summer. Glass in the roof would be nice.

Station regeneration? People are always wondering where their ticket and tax money is going. A small part of it went on replacing red metal seats at Haymarket with grey metal seats. The red metal seats were only a few years old and almost as good as new. The grey metal seats do have arm rests. Was this the best use that could be made of the money? Station seats used to last for decades.

Scottish Executive That old implacable enemy of the railways, the Scottish Office, has undergone a Mandelsonian re-branding exercise. It is now called the Scottish Executive and works for the Parliament. The people who built gold-plated road schemes with huge over-capacity are still there though. Whether policy is changing remains to be seen. There is much consultation but still little action. However a number of MSPs with an interest in transport are on the Environment and Transport Committee.

The road forward? Edinburgh Council recently removed a former rail bridge in north Edinburgh, in order to build a new road. This was on a route with potential for rail use. Despite assurances to the contrary this new road is likely to form part of a north Edinburgh "relief" road. The council has promoted lots of new building in north Edinburgh but has so far failed to deliver an attractive public transport link. No wonder car use is increasing rapidly.

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