Missing link can truly integrate Scottish networks
While Edinburgh to Glasgow electrification will deliver a modest (but welcome) time saving ( RAIL 846), it does not achieve the major step-change improvement needed to interconnect our disjointed rail system, which is still handicapped by its historic origins and the unwelcome time-wasting barrier to increased rail traffic growth imposed by the half-hour break-of-journey hassle between Glasgow’s Central and Queen Street stations.
The real culprit denying logical integration of Scotland’s rail networks has been the Transport Scotland quango agency, which for ten ‘wasted years’ has stubbornly and irrationally refused to implement the clear recommendations of the 2008 Faber Maunsell transport/land use study, which confirmed the very strong economic/social mobility, environmental and connectivity benefits of a short Crossrail link across central Glasgow
This involves straightforward upgrading and electrification of Glasgow’s 1.8-mile City Union Line, still used for freight and occasional passenger excursions and robustly confirmed as a ‘good business case’ comfortably satisfying all the STAG 2 assessment criteria required.
Although branded as ‘Glasgow Crossrail’, achieving such a joined-up and modernised ScotRail would effectively complete Scotland’s missing link, by offering operational and passenger benefits of running some services through several urbanised areas - as evidenced by London’s Thameslink/Crossrail, Manchester’s Ordsall link and many progressive European cities.
ScotRail is facing a triple whammy from:
A gigantic road building programme, delivering faster motorways/dual carriageways/by passes.
Improved affordability of car travel (purchase and fuel), when set against rising rail fares.
Increasing numbers eligible for free concessionary bus travel throughout Scotland (any route/ distance/time) - sometimes as fast as train travel.
Against this onslaught, it is reasonable to ask Transport Scotland to relax its hostility towards Glasgow Crossrail, given that it represents ‘unfinished business’ further exploiting the value of Edinburgh-Glasgow electrification investment - and a key component of a modernised fit-for-purpose railway.
See feature, pages 56-59