The Scottish Government’s me-too announcement of another high-speed plan for the Edinburgh to Glasgow link may sound promising, but it’s really a total red herring. Getting up to 140mph on a roughly 50 mile journey is not exactly efficient, the cost will be enormous, and it wouldn’t be operational for at least twelve years. What’s more, the opportunities to make a clearer difference elsewhere in Scotland’s slowly–recovering rail network are plentiful. Ministers should be considering reopening the Buchan line, for example, or getting moving on Aberdeen Crossrail. Reopening the Edinburgh South Sub to passenger travel is still an extraordinarily cheap option, neglected since 1999.
The Glasgow-Edinburgh route is one of the lines I use most, and, all other things being equal, shaving some time off the journey would obviously not be an intrinsically bad thing: however, it’d be an awful lot more use for me if Scotrail put on a few trains after the current 11.30pm closedown. Even just two more would make a difference: say a 12.30am and a 2.30am. I was at a gig in Glasgow on Sunday night and a whole crowd had to leave before the encores, which is absurd.
Glasgow’s got much better music year-round, but conversely Edinburgh has five weeks in the summer when it should be a magnet for Glaswegian fans of the performing arts. A special Festival-only train back at a minute past midnight and a half-past midnight one on Friday and Saturday nights simply isn’t good enough. Plenty of Fringe events don’t even start until midnight.
The same applies to other routes, too. More trains at a wider range of times. Better trains (power, wifi). Those are the less sexy things that could cheaply improve our network. There’ll be no ribbon to cut, no sense of oneupmanship with Westminster.
If the SNP want something more impressive like that, it’s time to do what 75% of the public want (a number which is enough to get them to change policy on NATO, after all, and I suspect most people use the railways more than they use Trident), do what even some Tories have told me in private should be done: bring the system permanently back into public ownership when they have the chance to do so in 2014.
The alternative is for SNP Ministers to renew the existing franchise in the referendum year. Do they really want to tell the Scottish people that they wish to retain every last mistake of Westminster?
#1 by dcomerf on November 13, 2012 - 2:29 pm
Presumably part of the point of high speed Edinburgh to Glasgow though is that it makes the business case for Birmingham or Leeds to Edinburgh (say) better because it turns it into Leeds to Edinburgh + Glasgow.
If this Edinburgh Glasgow investment is enough to get the UK gov to make the investment through the north of England, then the ‘effective return’ on the Edinburgh Glasgow investment is enormous.
#2 by Aaron Crane on November 13, 2012 - 3:25 pm
I think that could only be relevant if there are high-speed through services from Birmingham or Leeds to Glasgow. Saving a few minutes on the Edinburgh/Glasgow leg isn’t very interesting if you have to change at Waverley. And since the East Coast line no longer has through services from Kings Cross to Glasgow, that doesn’t seem to be guaranteed.
#3 by despairing on November 13, 2012 - 3:10 pm
The length of my Scottish railway wishlist would make John Holmes gasp with envy.
I’m not averse to local authorities & Network Rail cutting the government out of the equation. Why should they have to wait for Transport Scotland to get it’s act together to build an Aberdeen Crossrail or new platforms on the Sub?
They don’t seek government approval to carpet the local area in tarmac, why do it for local rail?
#4 by Glasgow Steve on November 13, 2012 - 10:32 pm
Isn’t “apologies for the inconvenience” the current Glasgow – Edinburgh train line motto?
Seriously. I take that train twice a day during the week. Is significantly late at least twice a week, and runs with two few carriages at least twice a week. Those poor poor people getting on at Falkirk…
#5 by Stuart on November 14, 2012 - 8:14 am
But building very expensive trains won’t solve that. Why not just see through EGIP? And if there’s more money in the pot, fantastic! Let’s get it spent on improvements to connecting our main cities.
And its really easy in Scotland, most of our cities run on 1 line (bar Edinburgh- sorry folks!) But simple improvements to Glasgow-Stirling-Perth-Dundee-Aberdeen line would be much more effective at getting people to use the train. Compare that to Englands main cities, then they need to have a number of branch lines to join their cities.
Or how about improvements to more rural lines? Again, that would be more effective at giving people more access to the trains?
Its just once again the ScotGov want to have the big headline grabbing project, when really the best thing for rail improvements are small, unimpressive but very effective at improving our railways.
#6 by Andrew on November 14, 2012 - 1:25 am
Perhaps I just reek of patience (unlikely) but the Edinburgh-Glasgow journey is a very short one anyway. I don’t really see the point is ploughing lots of money into it, when as you quite rightfully say there are lots of other things which could be priorities.
Agreed on the concert front, I’ll never forgive Scotrail for making me miss the encore of David Bowie in 2003!!! Swines!
#7 by John Ruddy on November 14, 2012 - 8:31 pm
Apprently word from the various nationalists who inhabit the internet is that Nicola never talked about High Speed between Edinburgh and Glasgow – the nasty BBC made it all up. Apprently someone read the press release from Transport Scotland which doesnt mention cutting Edinburgh-Glasgow to 30 minutes by a new High Speed line…
I agree, if there is money to be spent, lets spend £350m on finishing EGIP – get the journey time down to 35 minutes (just 5 mins slower than High Speed Rail), and spend the rest on wiring up to Inverness and Aberdeen, increasing capacity to Dundee and north, Glasgow, Aberdeen and Dundee CrossRails, reopen the Edinburgh sub etc….
#8 by James on November 14, 2012 - 10:36 pm
Love it when we agree.. 😉
#9 by BaffieBox on November 15, 2012 - 9:55 am
I commute on the Stirling-Edinburgh line, but have used the Edinburgh-Glasgow line enough to know it’s already far better than the rest of the network that it doesn’t need investment.
What we need is:
– More rolling stock.
– More services at peak times.
– Later services.
– More express services during peak times.
– Expand the network.
And more. High-speed Edi-Gla is a luxury we cannot afford. Im fed up standing on my daily commute, often in trains dangerously over-crowded. The journey is slow, pedestrian and tired.
I want to see investment in a expanded and prompt network. I dont need high speed, I dont need ultra-modern and I dont even need Wi-fi. Just trains to run when they are needed most, be on time, and be comfortable.