Take on the legacy of champion of Crossrail

IT was fitting that your tribute to Alistair Watson (Herald Obituary, July 1) specifically referred to his endeavours as a “committed supporter” of the Glasgow Crossrail project intended to logically interconnect ScotRail’s fragmented and disjointed routes, offering major economic-employment, social and environmental benefits and offering a more convenient, competitive and coherent alternative to car commuting than currently exists.

In Crossrail presentations, Mr Watson would remind audiences that this short (1.8 mile) rail link would be a powerful agent of urban regeneration across needy areas of inner Glasgow as well as delivering major travel benefits to many communities across Scotland far outwith greater Glasgow conurbation. Although officially titled “Glasgow Crossrail”, perhaps the description Scotland’s Crossrail route would be a more appropriate term for completion of our nation’s missing rail link. His enduring commitment to achieving this Crossrail modernisation link was not only backed by successive transport/land-use studies repeatedly confirming a good business case, comfortably passing all the assessment criteria required, but also the satisfaction of achieving unanimous cross-party political support from the Scottish Parliament’s Crossrail committee during 2007, when Crossrail was on the verge of getting the go-ahead.

We should by now be enjoying the multiple benefits planned by Crossrail and its component parts one of which is now worryingly under threat from a proposed blocking development which, if approved, would constitute an epic blunder bitterly regretted by future generations. Remember that around 30 per cent cost of reopening the Borders line resulted from the need to remove ill-judged obstacles and severances since its 1969 closure.

It is highly disturbing that Transport Scotland’s perverse and irrational vetoing of Crossrail has regrettably seen 10 wasted years, unfairly cheating Scotland out of the clear benefits associated with this firmly recommended rail link. However, Mr Watson has certainly left a powerful legacy that Crossrail should not indefinitely remain “unfinished business” if Scotland is to achieve a rail system fit for purpose consistent with the legitimate needs and aspirations of a sustainable and progressive society.

Ken Sutherland,

12A Dirleton Gate, Bearsden.

“THE good that men do is oft interned with their bones.” This could apply to the late Alistair Watson who achieved the aim of putting a Glasgow Crossrail link on the agenda.

I am dismayed to discover that the Transport Scotland quango is telling Glasgow City Council that it cannot do its statutory duty of protecting all of the intended Crossrail route for the future on the grounds that the future is only a maximum five years ahead – a case for judicial challenge if ever there was one.

London gained its first cross-city link when British Rail manager Chris saw the wisdom of reopening what was once called Snow Hill Tunnel in London. This was closed, but not ruined by development – just sitting waiting for resuscitation. The cost was little more than putting the track back and removing soot from the tunnel roof.

Since opening it is now a runaway success, so much so that extra cross-city routes are being fed into it next year. Many visitors from Scotland will have used it when travelling via Gatwick or Luton airports. Creating a similar key link in Scotland should be a fundamental objective of Transport Scotland’s stewardship and meaningful leadership by promoting extensions of the current Scottish rail network.

Had the Snow Hill tunnel in London been filled in, built on or otherwise blocked, there would not have been this cheap and affordable scheme now providing major benefits to tens of thousands daily. Yet it seems the same lessons have not been learnt in Glasgow – despite the example of the huge extra costs incurred in the Borders Railway with the required removing of blockages. The same thing had already happened in Paisley when a block of flats was approved on the track bed to the west of the Canal Station, which regrettably stopped restored trains sensibly going further. It should certainly not be allowed to happen a third time with the Glasgow Crossrail project.

Just as happened with the safeguarded Snow Hill Tunnel route in London, the long-planned crossGlasgow rail link deserves similar responsible planning protection for a few more critical years, rather than being squandered simply because it cannot be achieved/ funded within an arbitrary and short-sighted timescale which we will certainly regret.

Leslie Freitag,

22 Cravells Road, Harpenden.