WAVERLEY AND S&C: A THROUGH ROUTE FOR STEAM?
The potential reopening of the Waverley Route is already leading to tantalising thoughts of steam at Riccarton JunctionÉ
The Waverley Route. There have been calls ever since the new Borders Railway opened to Tweedbank for it to go further - a possible next step being Hawick, another 18 miles or so. Now, Transport Scotland has announced it is to look into extending the line - and not just to Hawick, but Carlisle. That would take the current 35-mile railway up to something like 98 miles; the new mileage would be slightly different to the original, because the project would restore all but a short section in Carlisle itself, which isn’t needed to connect the southern end of the old North British to the national network. The suggestion has caused great excitement - not least among the SettleCarlisle ‘family’ - at the idea of the old Midland/NBR London-Edinburgh route being restored throughout. Mark Rand from the Friends of the Settle-Carlisle Line says his organisation “welcomes this study with open arms” while Settle-Carlisle Railway Development Company Director Steve Broadbent says a Leeds-Carlisle-Edinburgh service would be “a ‘must-do’ experience for tourists”. Such organisations are thinking, if you like, at a strategic level - their comparison being somewhere like Switzerland. Then there is the Campaign for Borders Rail itself - which bases its case on things like sustainable transport and providing a diversionary route.
ROMANCE - AND REALITY
Fine. But what about steam? It’s easy to see the romance of potential steam trips - but promoters themselves are cautious about what that would look like, for one very good reason - logistics. Leeds to Edinburgh via the ‘S&C’ and Waverley Route is some 211 miles. Marcus Robertson, whose outfit Steam Dreams has just reprised its 2016 ‘Scotsman to Edinburgh’ trip, says: “Of course you’d do it as part of a four-dayer or something.” Last year (when the train became famous for its ‘on-off’ gauging-related uncertainty), the ‘Scotsman’ train ran both ways via the East Coast Main Line. However, in this year’s May 13-16 iteration (when there was “not even the ‘mini-est’ of glitches”) it returned not via the classic LNER line but over Beattock and then the ‘S&C’. Plans are in place to do another trip in 2018 - and it might be different again. “It’s the third time next year,” explains Marcus. “We haven’t officially said what we’re doing... if we can, we might come back via the Cumbrian Coast. If you’re going to do these weekends in Edinburgh it makes sense to vary the route, although one way just has to be via the ECML!”
NORTH VS SOUTH
What about day trips? “Unless you’re based in the north I don’t think it’s a viable day trip,” says Marcus, “but for Scots it’d be very feasible to do Carlisle for a day. For a Southbased operation, as we are, it would just not be a viable thing. “I think reopening would be a great thing. Would it get lots of steam? Yes. But would it be day trips from the South? No.” The Railway Touring Company’s Nigel Dobbing has a similar take. “We wouldn’t run a regular train over there, I don’t think.” From Nigel’s point of view, “the business is going to come from the south - people go to Edinburgh. “It’s just too long - people want to go there and back in a day. We would run something like the ‘Great Britain’ over there, or weekends in Edinburgh, staying overnight.
“Probably the best thing to do would be to go from London to Leeds with [Class 86 No. 86259] Les Ross and then put steam on at Leeds. You’re talking not far short of 1,000 miles in total - it’s massive.” What about from the north? The last couple of years featured ScotRail running steam to Tweedbank, and for this season the Scottish Railway Preservation Society is planning trips involving both the Borders line and the Forth Bridge (August 6, 13, 20 and 27). Trains will start at Linlithgow with various pick-ups before Edinburgh and SRPS Railtours Officer Roger Haynes said he expects motive power to be a ‘Black Five’ from the Ian Riley stable. Given the lack of a run-round loop at the current Borders terminus of Tweedbank, the trains will run ‘top and tail’ with a diesel. However, while the diesel will haul the train on the return from Tweedbank, it is to turn on Niddrie triangle (Newcraighall) to put steam back on the front for the rest of the trip. “There is potential, obviously,” says Roger Haynes of an expanded Borders Railway. “Many years ago we used to do the Glasgow & South Western Railway, and back via the West Coast Main Line. It would seem to be a reasonable way of doing it. But obviously it’s a long way off, and you don’t know what the situation will be by then.” Would the ‘destination’ of such trips be Carlisle? “It depends on how they set the line up - it could be that the break should be somewhere along the Waverley Route.”
THE BOTTOM LINE
So the conclusion may be that a reopened Waverley Route would feature steam - as of course the existing Borders and S&C do - but it might not happen as a joined-up whole very often. Clearly too, whatever happens depends on what a revived line looks like. If the new section is largely single track like the existing Borders Railway, running steam could prove a challenge - even if going beyond Tweedbank could solve the lack of a run-round loop. Of course, as Roger suggests, it isn’t going to happen any time soon. But it’s still a lovely prospect… and it might be even better if the prospects for steam and charters are built in from the start.