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The problem that is Stranraer


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51 minutes ago, Reorte said:

Been on the steam train, there's time to go to a pub for a meal and a short wander around - with that much time you don't need a great deal else to do, but I can't really see the journey to Stranraer getting the same response, or it being as pleasant to go for a brief wander around and bite to eat (helps the Mallaig's station is rather more conveniently placed too).

It's not the same, but from the current ScotRail timetable, Glasgow to Stranraer is 2h40 or so, and Fort William to Mallaig is about 2 hours by steam train (90 mins by regular DMU). If the "Burns Country Expedition" started from Edinburgh and had a traction change it would probably be about 4h each way, but that's not totally ridiculous for a day out where the main point is a scenic train ride. Market it at the many tourists who visit Edinburgh and I reckon a couple of times a week you might be able to fill enough carriages to make it worthwhile. An 86 down to nearly Ayr would fit in with the main services and then a Black 5 for the more scenic bit would be quite an attractive offering if you ask me.

 

As I said earlier, having something to offer at Stranraer is pretty important, but a boat ride up the loch would tick that box and be attractive to tourists, and it's a moderately sized town with pubs and stuff too.

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6 minutes ago, Zomboid said:

...An 86 down to nearly Ayr would fit in with the main services and then a Black 5 for the more scenic bit would be quite an attractive offering if you ask me.

I was going to ask if Ayr had the ability to manage such a changeover until I had a look on Google aerial views, I hadn't realised just how much railway there was there.

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39 minutes ago, Reorte said:

I was going to ask if Ayr had the ability to manage such a changeover until I had a look on Google aerial views, I hadn't realised just how much railway there was there.

 

Much of which is lying disused since the coal traffic (ironically to Northern Ireland) stopped being shipped through Ayr Docks.  EWS own Falkland Yard and all other traffic cannot use the yard - for example the Grangemouth to Prestwick Aviation Fuel Train runs round in Ayr Station instead of using the yard, this has lead to safety concerns https://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/local-news/union-official-fears-flight-fuel-8274553

"Gerry, an official with the RMT, said: “If someone put a light to these trains, it would blow away half the town. "  Mind you providing they got everyone evacuated that might solve the problem with the crumbling station hotel!!

 

Jim

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On 12/11/2020 at 04:10, Legend said:

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. 

 

7 hours ago, Nick_Burman said:

 

You'll have to reopen the line to Dumfries first in the second case...


Not necessarily. After closure of the Port Road,  Carlisle-Stranraer traffic went Carlisle-Dumfries-Mauchline-Ayr-Stranraer, all of which is still open. It’s a long way round, though!

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13 hours ago, pH said:

 


Not necessarily. After closure of the Port Road,  Carlisle-Stranraer traffic went Carlisle-Dumfries-Mauchline-Ayr-Stranraer, all of which is still open. It’s a long way round, though!

The east to south part of the triangle seems to have been removed at the Ayr end of the Mauchline - Ayr line, and whilst running round at Falkland yard is possible based on the track that's provided, it might be easier to run via Kilmarnock where the junctions face the right way to avoid reversal. Either of those take an already long journey and make it longer...

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I wrote about the future of this line - and the possibility of moving Stranraer station - on another thread some time ago.  This one seems to have come to the same conclusion; where's the demand?  The only points I would make that perhaps haven't already been said are:

  1. Closure, while politically unacceptable, would probably be resisted greatest by those unaffected.  The problem is that is sets a precedent; once you've closed the biggest loss-maker, the DfT will turn its attention to the 2nd greatest, then the 3rd and people whose local line is in the bottom 15 start getting very nervous, and they live in other, perhaps more marginal constituencies.......
  2. Relocating the station won't recover any costs (you can't sell the Harbour station site if there's no demand for a harbour), it would only avoid future maintenance costs. 
  3. Reopening the old Town station would reduce the door-to-door journey times for many locals by perhaps ten minutes, because they are effectively going to the far side of town to come back through it.  However, this won't matter if people who choose the bus do so for price reasons, only those for whom time is important and do not have access to their own car; this is a vanishingly small proportion of people.
  4. The point that very, very few people travel by surface public transport between the UK and Ireland has already been well made.  An analogy is the service to a local station of my youth, Fishguard Harbour.  Up to the late 1980s, it had through services from London to connect with the twice-daily ferries, up to ten coaches long.  They are now served by a half-full 2-car 150*; since the station was re-opened a mile away, nearer the town at Goodwick (which after about five years, had cost about £95 per passenger) the traffic from the Harbour has continued to decline while that from Goodwick has grown, suggesting that a fair proportion of the traffic was abstractive and not new.  It has been suggested that Stena would like to close the Harbour station altogether, to avoid the cost of renewing the level crossing at the platform end. 

*There is no escaping that the growth in "International" travel this century has been in the short break market (met by the low cost airlines), where people are going away only for a weekend.  Nobody in SE England is realistically going away for a weekend in Dublin, when the door-to-door journey takes about 11 hours each way and the alternative by air is perhaps four hours. 

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47 minutes ago, Northmoor said:

I wrote about the future of this line - and the possibility of moving Stranraer station - on another thread some time ago.  This one seems to have come to the same conclusion; where's the demand?  The only points I would make that perhaps haven't already been said are:

  1. Closure, while politically unacceptable, would probably be resisted greatest by those unaffected.  The problem is that is sets a precedent; once you've closed the biggest loss-maker, the DfT will turn its attention to the 2nd greatest, then the 3rd and people whose local line is in the bottom 15 start getting very nervous, and they live in other, perhaps more marginal constituencies.......
  2. Relocating the station won't recover any costs (you can't sell the Harbour station site if there's no demand for a harbour), it would only avoid future maintenance costs. 
  3. Reopening the old Town station would reduce the door-to-door journey times for many locals by perhaps ten minutes, because they are effectively going to the far side of town to come back through it.  However, this won't matter if people who choose the bus do so for price reasons, only those for whom time is important and do not have access to their own car; this is a vanishingly small proportion of people.
  4. The point that very, very few people travel by surface public transport between the UK and Ireland has already been well made.  An analogy is the service to a local station of my youth, Fishguard Harbour.  Up to the late 1980s, it had through services from London to connect with the twice-daily ferries, up to ten coaches long.  They are now served by a half-full 2-car 150*; since the station was re-opened a mile away, nearer the town at Goodwick (which after about five years, had cost about £95 per passenger) the traffic from the Harbour has continued to decline while that from Goodwick has grown, suggesting that a fair proportion of the traffic was abstractive and not new.  It has been suggested that Stena would like to close the Harbour station altogether, to avoid the cost of renewing the level crossing at the platform end. 

*There is no escaping that the growth in "International" travel this century has been in the short break market (met by the low cost airlines), where people are going away only for a weekend.  Nobody in SE England is realistically going away for a weekend in Dublin, when the door-to-door journey takes about 11 hours each way and the alternative by air is perhaps four hours. 

Wouldn`t it be the Holyrood government in Edinburgh that would close Stranraer and not the DFT in London?

Edited by class26
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Technically yes, but the UK Treasury holds the purse strings for the Block Grant. So not the DfT directly but certainly Westminster. I wouldn't put it past them to attach strings along the lines of not funding lame ducks, especially as Holyrood will get the blame. 

 

Having said that there are equally quiet lines in England not (yet) under threat.

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46 minutes ago, class26 said:

Wouldn`t it be the Holyrood government in Edinburgh that would close Stranraer and not the DFT in London?

In this case you're absolutely right, but the principle applies across the UK.  I suspect that Scotland doesn't actually have too many really big loss-makers; the West Highland and Far North lines are run quite efficiently and seem to attract plenty of traffic throughout the year.  In England and Wales, while the percentage growth on some rural lines has been high, they are starting from a very low level.  If the DfT wanted to push hard for savings, services like Leeds-Goole would come under scrutiny.  Having seen the published passenger figures, the decline in traffic across most of Wales in the last few years is concerning; hopefully the WAG will take a "Scottish" attitude to railways from now on, rather than the previous policy of treating them like an embarrassing relative whose care home fees they forgot they'd agreed to pay for.

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Working for Scotland's railways from 1984 to 2016 was highly rewarding, especially in recent years with multiple electrification schemes and line re-openings, culminating in the magnificent Borders Railway. But I cannot agree that 'Scotland doesn't actually have too many really big loss-makers' ; The ORR Rail Finance report 2018-19 shows Scotrail requiring an average subsidy per passenger km of 21.4p; Only Northern and Transport for Wales require more. The West Highland and Far North Lines are indeed wonderful railways, but expensive to maintain and operate, and I doubt if they ever made a real profit. I sincerely hope that no railway is closed, and that where justified more are opened, but that depends on the voters electing politicians prepared, and able, to continue spending on rail. The Stranraer line is a sad case, whose major traffic flows have gone and will never return. 

 

4 hours ago, Wheatley said:

So not the DfT directly but certainly Westminster. I wouldn't put it past them to attach strings along the lines of not funding lame ducks, especially as Holyrood will get the blame. 

 

Rest assured that if that happened our politicians up here would not hesitate to pass the blame onto Westminster !

 

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I love all this chat about whether the line to Stranraer is any use financially. Is any of our public transport system of any use financially? Even pre COVID the amount being pumped into railways was eye watering, now it must be relatively more being as how there are fewer ticket receipts. 

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There's "profitable", "worth subsidising" and "not worth subsidising" parts to public transport.

 

Whether something is "worth subsidising" thing is purely a judgement call, and the present (well, recent) political arena is such that pretty much everything that's left of the rail network is going to be very hard to close in any meaningful sense.

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Well the Govt Is apparently bringing forward the date  to phase out diesel and petrol cars by 10 years . Seems we might be needing public transport more than before . I believe the line south of Girvan is stated to be hydrogen powered . 

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22 minutes ago, luckymucklebackit said:

The December timetable changes have resulted in the service being reduced to 4 trains each way per day. 

 

So its service is now comparable to the Heart of Wales line or as I mentioned earlier, the Fishguard Harbour branch (but three times longer).

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Aw bless, another of Boris' Fairyland ideas (or perhaps Tir na nOg would be more appropriate?) looks to be about to collide with reality:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-59368707

 

It says a lot about the economics of the NI - UK mainland link.  Anyone comparing it with the undersea links built in Hong Kong has clearly never been there.  When HK was handed back to the Chinese in 1997, I think it accounted for less than 1% of China's population, but about 20% of its GDP.

 

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I was thinking of this line while reading a new article regarding a huge new housing development on the southern outskirts of Ayr.  https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-scotland-business-59293681  despite the proximity of the Ayr General Hospital and the fact that the line skirts the whole north eastern flank of the development there is nothing to suggest a new station could be built, indeed none of the news articles even mention that the railway is there and there nobody is advocating that a station should be built.

 

Edit - found the planning document which states that there is some thought on this, but nothing concrete:

 

(16) Safeguarding land related to Rail Halt No development shall take place on the site until a scheme for safeguarding the land within the site which is reasonably required for vehicular and pedestrian access to a rail halt (and related ancillary buildings) capable of serving the wider South East Ayr strategic growth area has been submitted to and approved in writing by the Planning Authority. The safeguarding of the required land shall be undertaken in accordance with the approved scheme. The scheme shall include: a) Provisions for such other agreements (if any) as may be necessary for the safeguarding of the necessary land on the site; b) The indicative location of a rail halt that could serve the South East Ayr strategic growth area; c) The location and extent of the land to be safeguarded; d) The arrangements for the safeguarding of the safeguarded land in perpetuity; e) The arrangements for transfer of the land to facilitate the use of the safeguarded land as a rail halt including for access, parking, turning of vehicles; and f) Provisions to allow the erection of any buildings or structures necessary to serve a rail halt.

 

JIm

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