The problem that is Stranraer

[lmsforever]

I have just been watching a dvd on the line to Stranraer and   wondered why the origonal station is still used when the ferrry service is no more.Surely it would make sense to reopen the town station as this is much more convenient for passengers,also closing the pier line would cut costs the entire area could be demolished.Does anyone know why this has not happened or are there historical agreements in place etc any ideas please.

['CHARD]

Just a guess, and it could well be under consideration (I'm sure there are more qualified/ local people than I to comment), but cost is presumably the principal obstacle.  Planning, design, infrastructure, signalling, consents and approvals - none of these come cheap, and what increase in passenger numbers could be guaranteed to offset these?

 

The old Town site is barely closer to Stranraer centre than the present Harbour station; I would have thought that if the station was to be replaced, then moving it to the landward end of the harbour would suffice.

[Wheatley]

I think the root of the problem is that, if you were going to invest the millions required for a new station in Stranraer (even a new old station), you wouldn't build it in Stranraer. It would be better in Cairnryan where the ferries are, with a halt on the outskirts of Stranraer for the handful of local users.  There's a reason the connecting bus goes from Ayr. 

 

Much as I love the place only 10,000 people live there and they can't all want to go to Glasgow or even Ayr that often. For those that do, the old town station is just as inconvenient for the town centre as the harbour is, just less windy. The landward end of the pier would be a better option. 

 

Edit - Great minds !

Edited November 10, 2020 by Wheatley

[Zomboid]

A platform with a moderately sized shelter at the southern end of the pier surely wouldn't cost millions and millions, would it?

 

It certainly looks like the best way to get a station somewhere near Stranraer. Is there much likelihood of traffic from the surrounding area? From Google maps Stranraer looks like something of a nothing place surrounded many even lesser places, most of which are the sea bed.

[Joseph_Pestell]

I would not demolish the rest of the pier. It may be needed for a "Farage Garage".

[KeithMacdonald]

Here's one we made earlier:

 

 

[Wheatley]

Coventry Arena £4m,  Horden £10m, Kenilworth £14m. Knock a bit off for just one platform but not half, the cost is not just in the materials. 

 

Your estimate of the traffic potential from the surrounding area is probanly accurate. There isn't a great deal going on in terms of passenger potential. 

Edited November 10, 2020 by Wheatley

[2251]

The Town station was on the very edge of the town because it was on the line on to Port Patrick.

 

With the benefit of hindsight, it is perhaps unfortunate that the Cairnryan Military Railway was closed. 

[caradoc]

Agree that the easiest, and cheapest, solution would be one platform on a single line at the landward end of the pier; Perhaps selling the now unnecessary land would help pay for it ? But perhaps that, and certainly any other plan, simply cannot be justified by the traffic potential, with or without ferry passengers, and as for the mad idea of re-instating the Port Road from Dumfries...... 

 

[Zomboid]

Kenilworth has a footbridge and lifts and is on a route where I'd guess access is considerably more expensive than at Stranraer.

 

I suspect the new platform at Sheringham is a more representative example of what moving the platform at Stranraer would cost. Whatever that was...

Edited November 12, 2020 by Zomboid

[Wheatley]

Sheringham cost a million, and it has 5 times Stranraer's users.  

[Wheatley]

D&G Council 2014 Masterplan - move the station towards the town end of the pier (not right next to the town, that would get in the way of the supermarket development !) and fill the rest with housing and (maybe) a casino. Or an open air museum. Or something:

 

  https://www.gov.scot/binaries/content/documents/govscot/publications/factsheet/2018/06/dumfries-and-galloway-council-planning-authority-core-documents/documents/stranraer-waterfront/stranraer-waterfront/govscot%3Adocument/SG%2B-%2BStranraer%2BWaterfront.pdf

 

The station is on page 47. Wikipedia (yes I know) reports that since then the money ring-fenced for the new station was spent on something else, and that Network Rail did not own the station according to their 2018 Network statement. 

[Flittersnoop]

Silly question, perhaps, but why is the railway to Stranraer still open if the traffic on offer is so sparse? Closure would be a lot cheaper than building a new station at Stranraer.

[nightstar.train]

5 minutes ago, Flittersnoop said:

Silly question, perhaps, but why is the railway to Stranraer still open if the traffic on offer is so sparse? Closure would be a lot cheaper than building a new station at Stranraer.

 

Closing it would require the consent of the Scottish government who are very pro public transport. They’ve re-opened several lines over the last decade, no way they’d close one. 

[Wheatley]

As nightstar says, closing it is politically unacceptable and the ferries have only been gone 9 years, not long in strategic planning terms. Even less pro-rail governments won't close lines, pretty much since the S&C  was saved by one of the most anti-rail governments since Marples. You might lose the odd station here and there but I'm struggling to think of a whole route which has closed in the last 40 years. Total patronage south of Ayr is about 250,000 passengers a year (mostly from Girvan) so it still serves a purpose. 

 

It doesn't need a new station, the existing one is inconvenient but it isn't about to fall into the sea and doing nothing is a low cost option. There are bigger populations in Scotland with existing railway lines and no station at all to invest in first. 

 

 

Edited November 12, 2020 by Wheatley

[Bernard Lamb]

9 hours ago, nightstar.train said:

 

Closing it would require the consent of the Scottish government who are very pro public transport. They’ve re-opened several lines over the last decade, no way they’d close one. 

If anything they would extend the line to Cairnryan.

But that would need EU funding and that supply of cash has been turned off.

Bernard 

[luckymucklebackit]

Once Boris's tunnel gets underway this will all change.  The Scottish end of the Tunnel will be near the site of the old Town station and the McCoquelles interchange will be built there to transfer all the HGVs onto the McShuttles, round the back of the terminal there will be a bus shelter and platform for foot passengers, that will also accommodate the Glasgow Trains.

Seriously - I am amazed that the line remains open, I would bet that there are some within Scotrail that would like to see it closed.   If there was an issue on the line, say a major bridge defect or landslide I would wonder if it might cause Scotrail to announce the closure south of Girvan.

 

Jim 

[jonny777]

8 minutes ago, luckymucklebackit said:

Once Boris's tunnel gets underway this will all change.  The Scottish end of the Tunnel will be near the site of the old Town station and the McCoquelles interchange will be built there to transfer all the HGVs onto the McShuttles, round the back of the terminal there will be a bus shelter and platform for foot passengers, that will also accommodate the Glasgow Trains.

Seriously - I am amazed that the line remains open, I would bet that there are some within Scotrail that would like to see it closed.   If there was an issue on the line, say a major bridge defect or landslide I would wonder if it might cause Scotrail to announce the closure south of Girvan.

 

Jim 

 

If Boris has anything to do with a link to N Ireland, wouldn't it be a cable car? 

 

[luckymucklebackit]

1 minute ago, jonny777 said:

 

If Boris has anything to do with a link to N Ireland, wouldn't it be a cable car? 

 

 

Come to think of it he would probably use his pal Richard's Hyperloop!

[Zomboid]

17 minutes ago, luckymucklebackit said:

Seriously - I am amazed that the line remains open, I would bet that there are some within Scotrail that would like to see it closed.   If there was an issue on the line, say a major bridge defect or landslide I would wonder if it might cause Scotrail to announce the closure south of Girvan

If you look at the amount of money that's thrown at the Blaenau Ffestiniog branch every other year when parts of it get washed away, I highly doubt there'd be any chance of closing it.

[Legend]

I hoped we had got past the stage of considering closure of lines . I do appreciate that there is very little traffic south of Girvan .

 

We are actively looking at extending from Tweedbank to Carlisle and I thought I had seen somewhere that people were looking at Dumfries to Stranraer (The old Port Road), so we do seem to be looking at re-openings . It makes no sense to look at closures at same time 

 

Forget Boris's tunnel/ bridge or whatever, but surely if infrastructure projects of that scale are even contemplated , redirecting the line to Cairnryan must be in scope and a lot less expensive . There used to be a line to the wartime harbour at Cairnryan , so some basic structure is there.   There is a study looking at connectivity in the UK, so this is surely a qualifying project . as both a freight and passenger corridor . Up till Covid by far the easiest , quickest to get to from Scotland N Ireland was by air . This may now have changed. 

 

What we should be looking at is boosting the lines tourist potential . Its a very attractive line , and even though its virtually on my doorstep . I've never made it by train to Stranraer. 

There must be scope to take freight off the roads and getting more on rails either Glasgow- Stranraer  or Carlisle- Stranraer .  The roads on either routes are not great for artics. 

[luckymucklebackit]

Legend - I really hope that closure is not considered, I was just being realistic.  As for extension to Cairnryan I would doubt that this would generate much more traffic than at present as the combined train/bus/ferry/train time from Glasgow to Belfast is around 7 hours, reinstating a direct link to the port would only bring that down to about 6 hours minimum.  The flight from Glasgow to Belfast takes 20 minutes, even adding transfers and check in it is not much more than 3 hours from Glasgow to Belfast centre to centre.  The Ferry traffic is predominately HGVs with Buses and Cars making up the balance.

I agree with the comments regarding tourist traffic, at one time Stranrear was trying to attract the Cruise Liners to the port, that could have been linked to Ayrshire (Land of Burns and all that) by trains, possibly steam hauled or luxury stock.  I think that the Pier Station needs work done for that, as everything that goes down that way (not very much granted) is top and tailed to avoid having to shunt at Stranraer.

 

Jim

[caradoc]

I also cannot see how diverting the line to Cairnryan could possibly be justified by the traffic offering, which even pre-Covid was easily catered for by a 2-car Class 156 every two hours. I travelled from Glasgow to Belfast in March, and despite having free rail travel both in Scotland and Northern Ireland, plus a discount on the ships, I went by air, which even with transfer time to and from the airports at each end was still way faster than rail/sea/rail was, or ever could be; As luckymucklebackit has shown while I was typing this ! 

 

And as for re-opening the Port Road, this is just a pipe-dream; Does anyone still actually travel by rail from England to Northern Ireland, and for freight the road option is and always will be more flexible, and cheaper, than rail. 

 

[Flittersnoop]

2 hours ago, Legend said:

I hoped we had got past the stage of considering closure of lines . I do appreciate that there is very little traffic south of Girvan .

If there is, by your own admission, very little traffic south of Girvan, then what is the reason to retain the line, other than sentimentality? Other lines in Scotland have been reopened because there was a demand for the service. Retaining a line for which there is no demand is perverse. I've been to Stranraer once by train - the scenery was attractive, but not more so than (say) from Carlisle to Carstairs.

 

As for Blaenau Ffestiniog, it's in the heart of one of the UK's premier tourist areas - not something that will ever be said for Girvan - Stranraer.

 

As Luckymucklebackit has said, it wouldn't take much more than a landslide or bridge damage for the line to be closed, "temporarily"...

 

And as for reopening the Port Road - was there ever a railway that better succeeded in avoiding every potential source of traffic along its route?!

 

[Zomboid]

17 minutes ago, Flittersnoop said:

As for Blaenau Ffestiniog, it's in the heart of one of the UK's premier tourist areas - not something that will ever be said for Girvan - Stranraer.

True, but the 5(ish) daily trains of 2 cars doesn't justify the amount of money thrown at it every other winter.

 

The politics of railway closures at present means that the line is highly likely to remain part of the network for the foreseeable future. I wouldn't be surprised if there was some scope to develop it into something more than the underused backwater that it is, but that will require investment, probably quite significant. But a relatively scenic line like that might well be able to support some kind of tourist oriented service. A regular (during summer/ peak tourist times) run from Edinburgh to Stranraer with an electric loco to somewhere like Barassie or Newton on Ayr and a kettle to/from Stranraer might draw in enough punters to be worthwhile, and would take some of the Edinburgh tourists down there. Whether they'd have any time to spend any money is another matter... Anyway, that's essentially importing what they do in Japan on routes like the Hisatsu line, and there's a few in this country where we could potentially do something along those lines on the Stranraer line and others.