Flagship rail way

We need a flagship rail service in Scotland. Something that we can point to as a nation and say with pride: “That is ours. We did it.”

The Victorians built the Forth Rail Bridge, which continues to symbolise the engineering excellence of Scotland. What did we do in the 20th or 21st centuries?

I caught the train from Edinburgh Waverley station to Glasgow Queen Street last week. The train left Waverley at 07.45 and made stops at Falkirk, and Lenzie. In total the train was stopped for three minutes and 50 seconds. If you consider the time to slow the moving train and accelerate it back to speed, the time cost of these stops was around eight minutes.

The train arrived at Queen Street at 08.40. A non-stop express would have arrived at 08.32, or 15 per cent faster.

We need a prestige, nonstop service from Edinburgh to Glasgow. Let’s call it The Flying Scot. A special paint scheme on the trains leaving from Platform 11 at Waverley arriving at Platform 7 at Queen Street, priority on the line and the expertise of Network Rail dedicated to further improvements on the rail line between the two cities.

With the existing rolling stock and rails, the journey time could be 47 minutes rather than the current 55.

JOHN BLACK Woodhollow House,

Helensburgh