Borders to Edinburgh rail link project gets underway

[editor]

Excellent news: the project to reopen a rail line between Edinburgh and the Scottish Borders has officially begun.

The project to reopen a rail line between Edinburgh and the Scottish Borders has officially started.

Transport Minister Stewart Stevenson was in Galashiels to cut the first sod and activate the act of parliament which allows the scheme to be built.

He said the railway could be a catalyst for economic growth right across the south of Scotland.

Lib Dem MSP Jeremy Purvis said it was a "positive move" but hoped construction work could be speeded up.

Mr Stevenson was in the Borders to formally activate the Waverley Rail Act - the bill which means the link must be built.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/south_of_scotland/8546096.stm

http://www.railbrit.co.uk/location.php?loc=Edinburgh and Hawick Railway

 

[teuchter]

Good stuff. Scotland seems to be leading the way as far as rail reopenings are concerned, at the moment.

 

[Ich bin ein Mod]

Excellent news.

 

[weepiper]

It's unfortunately pretty useless as it's going to terminate at Tweedbank instead of going right through to Hawick and eventually Carlisle like the original line did.

 

[Cobbles]

The last thing that Edinburgh needs is a load of inbred knuckledragging borderers wandering around Princes Street.......

Thankfully the poor bus service used to restrict movement to those who had sufficient brain power to work out how to get a car.

 

[pogofish]

It's unfortunately pretty useless as it's going to terminate at Tweedbank instead of going right through to Hawick and eventually Carlisle like the original line did.

This, they need to get the whole thing reopened.

 

[ViolentPanda]

The last thing that Edinburgh needs is a load of inbred knuckledragging borderers wandering around Princes Street.......

Thankfully the poor bus service used to restrict movement to those who had sufficient brain power to work out how to get a car.

Give them the facility to ride you out of town on a rail, though, so it ain't all bad.

 

[agricola]

Give them the facility to ride you out of town on a rail, though, so it ain't all bad.

Him? He wouldnt be seen dead on a train.

 

[teuchter]

This, they need to get the whole thing reopened.

Is the long term plan for this to happen?

 

[editor]

The last thing that Edinburgh needs is a load of inbred knuckledragging borderers wandering around Princes Street.......

Thankfully the poor bus service used to restrict movement to those who had sufficient brain power to work out how to get a car.

Did I ever get around to telling you how utterly boring your dull trolling has become?

Put a sock in it, dullard.

 

[pogofish]

Is the long term plan for this to happen?

IIRC it was initially but as the scheme progressed, it became less and less likely. So maybe in principle, in the very long term yes.

 

[weepiper]

The last thing that Edinburgh needs is a load of inbred knuckledragging borderers wandering around Princes Street.......

Thankfully the poor bus service used to restrict movement to those who had sufficient brain power to work out how to get a car.

Twat.

 

[weepiper]

They really need to open the whole line, it's a white elephant at the moment because you can drive from Selkirk/Gala/Lauder/Earlston to Edinburgh in around an hour as it is (even though the A7 and the A68 are underfunded deathtraps). But if it served Hawick, Langholm and the areas further southwest then there would be a much bigger potential market because people living there have a rubbish bus service to either Edinburgh or Carlisle and driving is a real undertaking.

 

[Oswaldtwistle]

Weepiper, not disagreeing with you for a second, but people often take the train even when they have a car, if the stations at both ends are convient. That tends not to be the case with bus links.

 

[London_Calling]

I presume it's commuting country?

Spot the local housing price boom.

 

[editor]

There's an interesting video on the BBC site about the progress on the project. They're aiming to get the trains running by 2015 which sounds mighty ambitious.
Video: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-22510460

More:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-edinburgh-east-fife-22198938

 

[Dogsauce]

Think it's just a single track, isn't it? If the full route is put back it'll need to be double track - are they making any accommodation for that in what they are building now? If for example they've built single-line bridges to replace missing bridges, or slewed the track to the centre of the alignment it's likely to make full reinstatement more expensive later. Having said that, I think most of the bridges were intact - though south of Tweedbank the route is lost in a few places.

 

[editor]

I imagine they'll be crossing points at stations, no?

 

[teuchter]

I was up in the Peak district at the weekend, walking in the Hope Valley. I was quite surprised to see how busy the railway line is through there, with freight, mainline trans-pennine services and local stopping services. Apparently it is quite congested with traffic, meaning that there is a scarcity of paths suitable for the slower stopping services which the locals want to be increased in frequency.

I've since learnt that pre-Beeching there was another (more modern) trans-pennine route a bit further to the north. Beeching decided to close that route and keep the Hope Valley one open. Now, the surviving route is full to capacity and the other one is apparently too expensive to reinstate. To make matters worse, in the 1980s part of the Hope Valley line was effectively single-tracked with platforms removed at one of the stations. This is now a major bottleneck and there is a campaign to get the double track reinstated.

Such a waste of potential. Too many decisions about our railways have been made without a proper long-term view. I find it unbelievable that when lines were closed by Beeching, planning restrictions weren't put in place to stop developments being built on the trackbeds so that there would be some opportunity of reinstating the lines in the future. It's such a waste that we have miles of trackbeds that could potentially be put back into use if it weren't for the fact that they have since been built on at various points where creating a diversion is now hugely expensive.

Anyway, it's good to see the borders link being put back to work.

 

[davesgcr]

I was up in the Peak district at the weekend, walking in the Hope Valley. I was quite surprised to see how busy the railway line is through there, with freight, mainline trans-pennine services and local stopping services. Apparently it is quite congested with traffic, meaning that there is a scarcity of paths suitable for the slower stopping services which the locals want to be increased in frequency.

I've since learnt that pre-Beeching there was another (more modern) trans-pennine route a bit further to the north. Beeching decided to close that route and keep the Hope Valley one open. Now, the surviving route is full to capacity and the other one is apparently too expensive to reinstate. To make matters worse, in the 1980s part of the Hope Valley line was effectively single-tracked with platforms removed at one of the stations. This is now a major bottleneck and there is a campaign to get the double track reinstated.

Such a waste of potential. Too many decisions about our railways have been made without a proper long-term view. I find it unbelievable that when lines were closed by Beeching, planning restrictions weren't put in place to stop developments being built on the trackbeds so that there would be some opportunity of reinstating the lines in the future. It's such a waste that we have miles of trackbeds that could potentially be put back into use if it weren't for the fact that they have since been built on at various points where creating a diversion is now hugely expensive.

Anyway, it's good to see the borders link being put back to work.

The Hope Valley can handle 3 "fast" , one freight and a stopping passenger per hour without too much grief - there are committed plans for more loops for freight and to redouble the spur round from the Midland at Dore (something I tried to get done over 7 years ago and failed miserably) - that should be enough for the mid term - a nicely busy bit of railway it is now ...

 

[equationgirl]

Think it's just a single track, isn't it? If the full route is put back it'll need to be double track - are they making any accommodation for that in what they are building now? If for example they've built single-line bridges to replace missing bridges, or slewed the track to the centre of the alignment it's likely to make full reinstatement more expensive later. Having said that, I think most of the bridges were intact - though south of Tweedbank the route is lost in a few places.

I think the bridges are pretty intace, although I do remember a bungalow or two on the track bed in a couple of places.

 

[Dogsauce]

TBH, the through route all the way to Carlisle probably isn't viable as it's sparsely populated and the line is quite steeply graded, so not suited to particularly fast traffic (and one of the reasons it closed, along with several other 'upland' railways). There's other routes available if traffic increases on the WCML and causes capacity issues, so not really that useful. There's a nice heritage group doing some work at Whitrope though, so some of the southern route will return.

 

[davesgcr]

I once abseiled down Shankend Viaduct ....good fun. The remains of the old signalbox were informally in use as a sheep shelter.

 

[SikhWarrioR]

The fallacy and short sightedness of beeching is proved yet again {compounded by the privatisation disaster of the last two decades} And with HS2 what price the retention of the most disasterious railway closure of all namely the Great Central London extention built for high speed with easy curves and gradients and to European Berne/UIC loading gauge

 

[SikhWarrioR]

The Hope Valley can handle 3 "fast" , one freight and a stopping passenger per hour without too much grief - there are committed plans for more loops for freight and to redouble the spur round from the Midland at Dore (something I tried to get done over 7 years ago and failed miserably) - that should be enough for the mid term - a nicely busy bit of railway it is now ...

Time to think about reopening the Great Central Woodhead route ??

 

[Dogsauce]

They've just stuck a high voltage cable through the (newer) Woodhead tunnel at quite an expense - don't think they'll want to give that one up easily. The two old bores are still free, but wouldn't have clearance for electrification, and the cable was moved from them due to them being in a poor condition.

I think they originally intended closing the Hope route and retaining Woodhead, but there were some politics involved in the decision, wasn't there? They also had their eye on the Woodhead route for the alignment of a trans-pennine motorway (part of which was built as the M67 at the western end, and with junctions built to accommodate at the east too) but concern over building it through a national park led to them building the M62 instead (which sits just north of the National Park boundary).

 

[davesgcr]

Time to think about reopening the Great Central Woodhead route ??

Not really - first step is to run longer passenger trains (some are only 2 or 3 cars - you get a 100% capacity increase that way - plus HS2 on the horizon and an upgrade planned for the hopelessly underused Derby - Stoke - Crewe line which gives freight access off the East Anglia sector to Madchester and Scouseland this way.

Am old enough to have despatched freight extra services from Felixstowe to Granadaland via Woodhead .....some of them were the last revenue earning trains on the line. Around 1983 / 4.

 

[Dogsauce]

Woodhead shut in '81, but they kept a single line in situ until '84 as this was a requirement of the closure process - don't think it was used though apart from engineering trains.

 

[SikhWarrioR]

They've just stuck a high voltage cable through the (newer) Woodhead tunnel at quite an expense - don't think they'll want to give that one up easily. The two old bores are still free, but wouldn't have clearance for electrification, and the cable was moved from them due to them being in a poor condition.

I think they originally intended closing the Hope route and retaining Woodhead, but there were some politics involved in the decision, wasn't there? They also had their eye on the Woodhead route for the alignment of a trans-pennine motorway (part of which was built as the M67 at the western end, and with junctions built to accommodate at the east too) but concern over building it through a national park led to them building the M62 instead (which sits just north of the National Park boundary).

The Great Central Woodhead route electrifiction work was started pre war by the LNER so would the LNER have cut a new tunnel at Woodhead if not for WW2 ??

 

[davesgcr]

It was work deferred due to WW2, and in the economics of the time - was worth doing - the National Grid and the fall of east to west coal traffic really did for Woodhead....