Disappointing timescales for Waverley Route and other projects

WHAT a treat to read Ashley Butlin’s piece on the Borders Railway, but how I groan at timescales involved in any future expansion.

It took 46 years after the Beeching closure to reinstate a truncated section of the Waverley Line, much of it single track, and thus unworkable for inserting specials or freight.

Mr Butlin suggests that building towards Hawick might commence by 2030, but that 2040 is more likely. This is to take care of planning protocols.

But completion dates? Add at least three years. I could be a centenarian by then. How long do similar proposals take on mainland Europe?

As for HS2? I’ll be lucky to be still here to travel on it.

London Crossrail? Three years late after an extraordinary building period.

Reopening Kintore station took 54 years (I was the reporter who broke the story about the reopening campaign in 1966).

The ‘Boris’ bridge/tunnel/crossing of the North Channel between Scotland and Northern Ireland? Dream on.

As a youngster, I wrote to the Scottish Transport Users’ Consultative Committee outlining my objection to Waverley Line closure, and gave reasons. With family in Galashiels and St Boswells, I used the line very often (oh, and a Borders girlfriend 1964-66 pushed up usage further).

As a young newspaperman I attended the news conference in Edinburgh of the Border Union Railway Company, the gallant but doomed effort to reopen the line privately.

Now we possess an EdinburghTweedbank line built down to a price rather than up to a standard, a real common denominator job, one that’s utterly incapable of expansion as it stands without heavy further investment.

Gordon Casely

Crathes

As regards major projects, Mr Casely has a fair point, with projects often ‘ de-scoped’ to reduce costs in order to appease the Treasury only to find shortcomings five years after the scheme opens – Ed.

WHEN the Borders Railway is eventually electrified, the improved acceleration of the new trains should allow Melrose instead of Tweedbank to be reached within an hour, easily facilitating such a short extension.

There might be a case for further reopening as far as the northern side of Hawick, but not beyond, in my view.

The old route did not serve Selkirk or Langholm unless you count the branches. Bridging the gap through Hawick and the lack of other significant settlements north of Longtown would require a huge subsidy that would be better spent on a short line from near Stranraer to Cairnryan for the Northern Ireland ferries.

My alternative dream is a high-class heritage railway from the southern side of Hawick to Whitrope, based on the excellent start made south of the tunnel.

Rob Pritchard Malvern, Worcestershire