Idea: Fort William to Glasgow via Perth

[FelixM]

 

This is opentopomap (link). On the left is Tulloch station on the West Highland line, and on the right Dalwhinnie station on the Perth to Inverness line. Today a train journey from Glasgow to Dalwhinnie is 2h15min, from Glasgow to Tulloch however 3h15min, so an hour longer.

 

Looking at the map and seeing these figures, I wondered whether it is a good idea to build a new Tulloch – Dalwhinnie line and in the same vein abandon the Tulloch – Crianlarich section, rerouting Fort William services via Perth.

 

The new line would be ~45km (27mi) long, replacing the 100km Tulloch to Crianlarich section that passes through Rannoch Moor. I cannot make out how long trains would need via the new line but certainly less than that hour.

 

The list of CONS:

 

Generally low patronage to Fort William compared to other lines, making any spending difficult to justify, however it is not clear to me whether there are few passengers because of few slow services, or whether there are few slow services because of few passengers.

 

Losing Corrour, Rannoch, Gorton, Bridge of Orchy and Upper Tyndrum stations.

 

Losing direct services from Fort William to Helensburgh, Dumbarton and Dalmuir.

 

Less patronage on the Crianlarich to Glasgow section, only being fed by the Oban branch.

 

In my view, services to Fort William would best be split at Stirling from Glasgow to Aberdeen fast services, currently using legacy HST rolling stock. This extends the driver-needed length of line to the split/merging point (Stirling instead of Crianlarich).

 

Perhaps signalling upgrade needed from Stirling to Dalwhinnie to accomodate Fort William and Inverness trains running in the same direction in quick succession.

 

The list of PROS is longer:

 

Abandonment of a 100 km line across a moor (slow speed, costly maintenance) and exchanging it for a 50 km line on rock soil.

 

Reduced travel times between Fort William and Glasgow.

 

As trains would be calling at Perth and Stirling, connections to Dundee, Edinburgh are available.

 

Fort William services calling at Blair Atholl and Dunkeld & Birnam could speed up some Perth to Inverness services, removing these stops from Inverness services.

 

Abandonment of the split/merge operation in Crianlarich, speeding Oban services up.

 

Routing of all remaining WHL services to Oban, enhancing service levels to Oban.

 

UNDECIDED

 

It is unclear to me how much the tourist appeal of the West Highland line would suffer from the abandonment of the Crianlarich to Tulloch section. While I appreciate that Rannoch moor is beautiful, there aren't exactly many businesses dependend of those extra passengers that would not ride the line if Fort William services would go via Perth instead of via Crianlarich.

 

I am mystified whether Caledonian Sleeper would be routed to Oban instead, perhaps with a connecting bus link to Fort William, or to Fort William via the new line. A removal of Highlander services between Edinburgh and Glasgow would be a considerable Con, I suspect.

 

Rolling stock profile would change, fewer DMUs would be needed to work the Oban section, but Fort William services would need diesel-electro stock for the eventual electrification of the Highland main line. I am not sure whether the total number of trains to be needed would rise eventuallly.

 

So, a lot of guesswork and playing with numbers here. But what do you think, is it an idea worth to persist with? Appreciating these times rail infrastructure projects have a difficult stand, but on the other hand the reopening of the Borders railway was just under a decade ago.

Edited March 26 by FelixM

[Dungrange]

35 minutes ago, FelixM said:

But what do you think, is it an idea worth to persist with?

 

I can't see it happening - it would be too expensive to build with too little patronage to justify the cost. 

 

The HSTs and DMUs will all be gone within the next decade, so as a proposal it would need to be considered in the context of the next generation of stock, where all passenger services will either be Electric Multiple Units (EMUs), Battery Electric Multiple Units (BEMUs) or Hydrogen powered.  Glasgow to Aberdeen / Inverness services will almost certainly be EMUs or BEMUs depending on how much of each route has overhead wires erected before the existing stock needs to be replaced.  However, I'm not aware of any plans for overhead on the West Highland line.  These services (ie the current ones to Oban, Fort William and Mallaig) are likely to either be hydrogen powered or BEMUs depending on the advancement of these technologies and which one appears most promising when the investment decision needs to be made.  There may therefore be operational issues if there was a desire to run a hydrogen powered unit for Fort William in multiple with an EMU for say Inverness as the two units would presumably have quite different operating characteristics.

 

That's less of an issue with the current set-up as the Oban and Fort William trains are likely to be the same class of unit, so could continue to operate as they currently do.

 

Would it help with connecting freight from Fort William (Corpach) to the rest of the network?  If it was electrified then yes, but otherwise, I suspect that freight on the West Highland will simply die off under the de-carbonisation agenda, because I'm not convinced that either hydrogen or battery technologies provide the power necessary to move freight on non-electrified lines over significant distances.

[Jeremy Cumberland]

Have you looked at the elevation of Loch Laggan? The dam is about 1 mile from Tulloch station at 258 metres above sea level. Tulloch station is at 205 metres, meaning a gradient steeper than 1 in 30 would be needed. Making the connection with the existing West Highland line further west won't help much, because the line is climbing all the way from Fort William.

 

East of Laggan dam the route to Newtonmore would probably be easy enough, although I have no idea why anyone would build it, but how were you thinking of getting to Dalwhinnie? I can't see an easy route on the south side of the Spey round Laggan, not at the elevation needed to cross Càthar Mòr. I don't know this area at all, but doesn't look much more hospitable than the route you are trying to avoid.

 

However, the big reason for not building a new line is there isn't the demand among the taxpayers of Scotland, and not even the most rail-mad First Minister could pursuade the voting public that this was worth spending millions of pounds on.

[adb968008]

More chance the scottish govt will run out of money to subsidize these lines and reduce services, maybe cut FW altogether, at least in the off season.

 

Beeching said no lines north of Glasgow made economic sense, 60 years later nothing changed.

 

it only exists because the public dont scrutinise their taxes, and civil servants get away with it.

Edited March 26 by adb968008

[BoD]

6 minutes ago, adb968008 said:

More chance the scottish govt will run out of money to subsidize these lines and reduce services, maybe cut FW altogether,

That would solve WCRC’s problem with the Jacobite.

[roythebus1]

The public consultation would take it towards the end of this century, arguments in parliament another 20 years of governments changing their minds a bit like the HS2 fiasco, meanwhile China builds 32,000 miles of new high speed lines. And TfL still won't have built the Ricky-Watford Junction link!

[Reorte]

14 hours ago, adb968008 said:

More chance the scottish govt will run out of money to subsidize these lines and reduce services, maybe cut FW altogether, at least in the off season.

 

Beeching said no lines north of Glasgow made economic sense, 60 years later nothing changed.

 

it only exists because the public dont scrutinise their taxes, and civil servants get away with it.

There are more kinds of sense than economic sense. Indeed, just looking at the economics isn't sense at all IMO; economic factors and considerations are enabling and limiting factors, they're something you need to have a good grasp of when determining whether or not something's even viable, but they're a means to an end and shouldn't ever be the end itself.

 

Sometimes we get a better world when economic considerations play second fiddle.

Edited March 27 by Reorte

[adb968008]

19 minutes ago, Reorte said:

There are more kinds of sense than economic sense. Indeed, just looking at the economics isn't sense at all IMO; economic factors and considerations are enabling and limiting factors, they're something you need to have a good grasp of when determining whether or not something's even viable, but they're a means to an end and shouldn't ever be the end itself.

 

Sometimes we get a better world when economic considerations play second fiddle.

Try explaining that to the taxpayer, especially those skipping meals to subsidize someone elses vacation travel.

Edited March 27 by adb968008

[Reorte]

8 minutes ago, adb968008 said:

Try explaining that to the taxpayer, especially those skipping meals to subsidize someone elses vacation travel.

A bit one extreme or the other there don't you think? I.e. exactly what I was getting at. Do we only pay for schools because ultimately there's an economic return? Libraries? Parks?

It should've also been very clear that I wasn't saying "economic considerations don't matter at all," since I pretty much spelled that out.

[adb968008]

22 minutes ago, Reorte said:

A bit one extreme or the other there don't you think? I.e. exactly what I was getting at. Do we only pay for schools because ultimately there's an economic return? Libraries? Parks?

It should've also been very clear that I wasn't saying "economic considerations don't matter at all," since I pretty much spelled that out.

Ive elsewhere made the case that for a few hundred quid a year in taxes we could have a well funded rail network for free for taxpayers.

 

however in both cases the world doesnt work like that.

 

Schools, libraries are more important than rail travel in remote areas mostly used by tourists.

This was Beechings principal, and that rationale hasnt changed. Scotrail is unable to stand on its feet, aside of 1 route.

scotland has a good, under utilized road network to the same places too, funded by the road tax, which gives road users unlimited road access for free, in absence of a rail tax, taxpayers are subsidizing vacations to Scotland, for who’s benefit ?

 

I am still unconvinced of 25kv across the highlands will find the funding, and reliably taking a BMU from Inverness to Wick is a pipedream for quite sometime. The case for a FW to Inverness line was maybe marginal 100 years ago, and a road is all there is, so today theres no argument for more rail here unless some major new source of minerals is discovered for mining.

 

Edited March 27 by adb968008

[62613]

24 minutes ago, adb968008 said:

Try explaining that to the taxpayer, especially those skipping meals to subsidize someone elses vacation travel.

If you mean by "taxpayer" that exclusive group paying income tax (as if there are no other taxes, which everyone pays some of, somewhere), then those skipping meals won't be paying much of that, since they will be in low - income groups; that includes large numbers of people on minimum wage, or pensions, or state benefits.

 

5 minutes ago, adb968008 said:

Ive elsewhere made the case that for a few hundred quid a year in taxes we could have a well funded rail network for free for taxpayers.

 

however in both cases the world doesnt work like that.

 

Schools, libraries are more important than rail travel in remote areas mostly used by tourists.

This was Beechings principal, and that rationale hasnt changed. Scotrail is unable to stand on its feet, aside of 1 route.

scotland has a good, under utilized road network to the same places too, funded by the road tax, which gives road users unlimited road access for free.

 

 

YE Gods! There is NO such thing as "Road Tax"; there hasn't been since 1937. What we have is Vehicle Excise Duty, which goes into the general revenue pool, some of which will be spent on roads.

[Reorte]

edit: replying to two posts ago (another reply appeared whilst I was typing)

 

And that's all well and good. I'm more than happy to pay taxes to contribute towards things I believe make the country a better place to live in even if they can't stand on their own two feet otherwise (which isn't solely just ones I personally benefit from). Obviously there have to be some limits there - the whole point about the economic considerations being limiting factors and a means to an end - but as a general concept, great. At the extreme it probably would make more economic sense just to let some people starve but who wants to live in a world where that would be seen as right and proper? And just because that's an extreme doesn't mean the same principle can't apply to less extreme scenarios.

 

Now I'm not trying to argue that the particular proposal in this thread should therefore go ahead, just that the "it doesn't make economic sense" isn't an argument against it in its own right (although "it makes little economic sense to a very excessive degree" would).

Edited March 27 by Reorte

[adb968008]

2 minutes ago, 62613 said:

 

YE Gods! There is NO such thing as "Road Tax"; there hasn't been since 1937. What we have is Vehicle Excise Duty, which goes into the general revenue pool, some of which will be spent on roads.

Most people wouldnt care about semantics.

its a tax to use the road… we all know that.

Edited March 27 by adb968008

[Dungrange]

31 minutes ago, Reorte said:

Sometimes we get a better world when economic considerations play second fiddle.

 

I agree and that's a major problem with the promotion of transport schemes in general.  In the past there has been a bias towards road based schemes because they are easier to present an economic case for.  A lot of road schemes have been shown to generate economic benefits that exceed the cost of construction, which means that they ultimately get built.  However, these nearly always assume a continual increase in traffic, so an increasing number of people will benefit and of course that also means that the counterfactual scenario is greater congestion than we have today.  The Scottish Government are now targeting a reduction in car use to meet NetZero (a desired 20% reduction in car kilometres by 2030) and therefore when taking account of negative traffic growth forecasts, many road schemes which previously indicated they were value for money can no longer demonstrate that.

 

Bus and rail schemes have historically been more difficult to promote because the economic case has been less easy to demonstrate.  In the case of bus, bus priority schemes generate benefits for bus passengers, but they also tend to hinder general traffic flow.  Therefore it's difficult to design a scheme where the benefits to bus users minus the dis-benefits to other road users minus the cost still produces a strong economic case: it usually doesn't.  In the case of rail schemes, rail patronage forecasts tend to be less bullish than road based travel despite passenger numbers on the rail network increasing over the two decades pre-COVID-19.  It's also more difficult to justify rail freight infrastructure because it tends to be trainloads or nothing and there is often no long term commitment to a rail freight flow, whereas for road based freight, it's simply assumed that if the road is built, it will be used. 

 

Clearly, there are a lot of other factors like carbon, ecology, etc which should be given more weight than the numbers output from a Cost Benefit Analysis Report.

 

12 minutes ago, adb968008 said:

Try explaining that to the taxpayer, especially those skipping meals to subsidize someone else's vacation travel.

 

Where the burden of taxation should fall is a slightly different matter and if I were Chancellor of the Exchequer, I'd be making massive changes to the way in which the government taxes the electorate, but that's straying from whether a proposal for new rail infrastructure is viable / affordable, into the world of politics.

[62613]

Just now, adb968008 said:

Most people wouldnt care about semantics.

its a tax to use the road… we all know that.

But you implied that it was used exclusively for roads maintenance and construction, which it isn't. I'm happy paying £3 - odd a week just to let my car rust away on the road (if that's what I wanted to do!)

[Dungrange]

Just now, 62613 said:

But you implied that it was used exclusively for roads maintenance and construction, which it isn't. I'm happy paying £3 - odd a week just to let my car rust away on the road (if that's what I wanted to do!)

 

I think that's a wider issue with regards misunderstanding about taxation.  There are also people who will tell you that National Insurance pays for state pensions and the NHS - again, it doesn't: the money raised just goes into the general taxation pot for the government of the day to use as it sees fit.  Vehicle Excise Duty is a tax that is paid if you want to own a car and use it on the public road network, but it doesn't just pay for road maintenance and could be regarded as a 'sin tax' in the same manner as duty on cigarettes, alcohol etc.

 

How road maintenance is paid for depends on who owns the road.  If it's a local authority road, then it will be paid for from Council Tax (and therefore paid by Council Tax payers irrespective of whether they own a car or not), albeit some local authority funding comes from national government payments, which will have come from the big pot of money that includes all forms of taxation (Income Tax, National Insurance, VAT, Fuel Duty, Vehicle Excise Duty etc).

[Reorte]

6 minutes ago, Dungrange said:

 

I think that's a wider issue with regards misunderstanding about taxation.  There are also people who will tell you that National Insurance pays for state pensions and the NHS - again, it doesn't: the money raised just goes into the general taxation pot for the government of the day to use as it sees fit.  Vehicle Excise Duty is a tax that is paid if you want to own a car and use it on the public road network, but it doesn't just pay for road maintenance and could be regarded as a 'sin tax' in the same manner as duty on cigarettes, alcohol etc.

And of course you can get cars where although there is a rate it's zero (mine is, and frankly I find that a bit absurd, although of course there's still all the tax paid on the petrol).

[62613]

7 minutes ago, Dungrange said:

 

I think that's a wider issue with regards misunderstanding about taxation.  There are also people who will tell you that National Insurance pays for state pensions and the NHS - again, it doesn't: the money raised just goes into the general taxation pot for the government of the day to use as it sees fit.  Vehicle Excise Duty is a tax that is paid if you want to own a car and use it on the public road network, but it doesn't just pay for road maintenance and could be regarded as a 'sin tax' in the same manner as duty on cigarettes, alcohol etc.

 

How road maintenance is paid for depends on who owns the road.  If it's a local authority road, then it will be paid for from Council Tax (and therefore paid by Council Tax payers irrespective of whether they own a car or not), albeit some local authority funding comes from national government payments, which will have come from the big pot of money that includes all forms of taxation (Income Tax, National Insurance, VAT, Fuel Duty, Vehicle Excise Duty etc).

Agreed! And the proportion of  central government grant making up local government finance has been falling quite steeply since before 2010, while the means local councils have to make up the shortfall has been limited. hence liesure centres, libraries, etc., being closed or privatised, and local roads falling apart. 

[adb968008]

None of any of this would justify another line in the Highlands.
 

I think Stranraer might to have merit to the new ferry terminal, though how many foot passengers are there in reality and does a coach from Belfast to Glasgow simply do the job better ?

 

i’m keen to do a Scottish trip, and want to do the FW to Inverness bus along the loch.. though with the Jacobite debacle i’ll park it the same place as my trip to israel for some unknown future date.

[adb968008]

1 hour ago, 62613 said:

But you implied that it was used exclusively for roads maintenance and construction, which it isn't. I'm happy paying £3 - odd a week just to let my car rust away on the road (if that's what I wanted to do!)

Thats your assumption not mine.

 

If people dont pay road tax (ved to pedants), your not using your car* on the road, unless you know something I don't ?

 

but once paid, you can use as much of the “free” public road network as you like.

 

That I also pay vat, apd, income tax, nic whatever and it all goes into a big golden government vault with rusty edges is irelevent… no virtual tax disc.. i could wake up with a faded golden triangle on my front wheel.

 

no ones checking the serial numbers of those £20’s to see if the exact same road tax £20’s are being poured into a money pit on the A14 and not an a community outreach centre for retired insect lovers of Scunthorpe, but if it isnt the exact same £20 note, its another one identical to it, printed in the same place and coming out of the same rusty government vault, probably with conditions attached to it and an expectation that £25 will be returned later.

 

it doesnt change the ultimate point…Scotrail more goes in, than comes out. Road alternatives exist and the populace served is small… its not going to change, but at some point Scotlands government may need to choose what it can and cannot afford… if it thinks of Scotrail as a piggybank of inward investment it might be surprised to find someday the pigs belly is wide open and the cash put it fell straight out… so new lines, 25kv, battery units maybe little more than new vinyl on 158’s.

 

 

* i know exceptions apply… electric, vintage, bicycle, uncle joes weird whatever, lets keep to the point.

Edited March 27 by adb968008

[caradoc]

There is not, never has been and never will be sufficient demand to spend huge sums of money on the West Highland Line, which does require subsidy but is already operated as efficiently as possible with most trains formed of DMUs controlled from a single signalling location. I, as a Scottish taxpayer (one of few commenting here I suspect) am perfectly happy for a small proportion of the money the Scottish Government takes from me to be used for subsidising railways, for their environmental, social and tourism benefits. 

 

Scotrail is not exactly the only rail operator requiring subsidy, either.....

 

[Reorte]

31 minutes ago, adb968008 said:

Thats your assumption not mine.

 

If people dont pay road tax (ved to pedants), your not using your car* on the road, unless you know something I don't ?

 

but once paid, you can use as much of the “free” public road network as you like.

Including those parts of the road network that don't pay for themselves and never could...

 

On the railways Beeching's been mentioned, but I don't think it's all that controversial a view that, even if you put aside the erroneous assumptions made (e.g. not accounting for the feeder traffic from branch lines and assuming people wouldn't just stay in the car rather than driving further to a station) more lines should've stayed open than did, even if the economic case wasn't quite there. But it's also not a particularly controversial view that there were plenty of lines that couldn't and shouldn't, as unfortunate as that was. The right balance should've been, again (IMO) economic factors certainly having a big part to play, but not being the only one.

Edited March 27 by Reorte

[ruggedpeak]

They said no one would use the Borders Railway and made it as cheaply as possible with limited passing places which means railtours cause services to be cancelled and the line does not have capacity if they undertake any extensions. Yet it was rammed from day one.

 

As the "war on cars" continues rural people will be priced off the roads the same as everyone else who isn't rich, so more trains will be needed. And if Nut Zero targets are to be met the Highlands will have to covered in wind turbines etc and all that kit will need transporting. Repopulating the Highlands makes a lot of sense, espeically as for much of history it was inhabited by humans rather than just deer and sheep, so a new line could help this.

[adb968008]

29 minutes ago, Reorte said:

Including those parts of the road network that don't pay for themselves and never could...

 

On the railways Beeching's been mentioned, but I don't think it's all that controversial a view that, even if you put aside the erroneous assumptions made (e.g. not accounting for the feeder traffic from branch lines and assuming people wouldn't just stay in the car rather than driving further to a station) more lines should've stayed open than did, even if the economic case wasn't quite there. But it's also not a particularly controversial view that there were plenty of lines that couldn't and shouldn't, as unfortunate as that was. The right balance should've been, again (IMO) economic factors certainly having a big part to play, but not being the only one.

but tax doesnt have to always be punitive, it can be made to look appealing…

https://dataportal.orr.gov.uk/statistics/finance/rail-industry-finance/
 

Rail industry income. £22bn.

 

However theres some paper money here… The govt gives Network Rail £7bn, but counts £3.4bn as “other income” recieved from Network Rail.

so perhaps its really a £18.6bn railway ?

The UK has 31million tax payers.

https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/income-tax-liabilities-statistics-tax-year-2020-to-2021-to-tax-year-2023-to-2024/bulletin-commentary#:~:text=5.1 Number of Income Tax,UK in 2020 to 2021.

(section 2.2)

 

So if the £18bn was divided by the 31mn, it works out £50 per month, and we could have a free to use railway network for everyone.. young and old who pays the “Rail tax”.

 

outside the 31m is non taxpayers, and i’m sure social accommodations could be met appropriately (ie free to retired/kids/prm, loans to unemployed, paid travel by non active or non resident etc).

£50 p/m (£600 per year) is a bargain, and a considerable saving to those currently using it… imagine what kind of a railway we could have for £100 a month ?
 

1.385bn rail journeys in the same period, by 31mn tax payers is equal to 44 journeys a year, so avg £4.40 a journey if £100 a month rail tax was applied.

 

of course some will never give up a car, or have no place rail can accomodate, but it would shift the public somewhat from road to rail..

 

But is this the kind of logic that leads to things like DBs Bahn card ?

 

Edited March 27 by adb968008

[ruggedpeak]

18 hours ago, FelixM said:

 

This is opentopomap (link). On the left is Tulloch station on the West Highland line, and on the right Dalwhinnie station on the Perth to Inverness line. Today a train journey from Glasgow to Dalwhinnie is 2h15min, from Glasgow to Tulloch however 3h15min, so an hour longer.

 

Looking at the map and seeing these figures, I wondered whether it is a good idea to build a new Tulloch – Dalwhinnie line and in the same vein abandon the Tulloch – Crianlarich section, rerouting Fort William services via Perth.

 

The new line would be ~45km (27mi) long, replacing the 100km Tulloch to Crianlarich section that passes through Rannoch Moor. I cannot make out how long trains would need via the new line but certainly less than that hour.

 

The list of CONS:

 

Generally low patronage to Fort William compared to other lines, making any spending difficult to justify, however it is not clear to me whether there are few passengers because of few slow services, or whether there are few slow services because of few passengers.

 

Losing Corrour, Rannoch, Gorton, Bridge of Orchy and Upper Tyndrum stations.

 

Losing direct services from Fort William to Helensburgh, Dumbarton and Dalmuir.

 

Less patronage on the Crianlarich to Glasgow section, only being fed by the Oban branch.

 

In my view, services to Fort William would best be split at Stirling from Glasgow to Aberdeen fast services, currently using legacy HST rolling stock. This extends the driver-needed length of line to the split/merging point (Stirling instead of Crianlarich).

 

Perhaps signalling upgrade needed from Stirling to Dalwhinnie to accomodate Fort William and Inverness trains running in the same direction in quick succession.

 

The list of PROS is longer:

 

Abandonment of a 100 km line across a moor (slow speed, costly maintenance) and exchanging it for a 50 km line on rock soil.

 

Reduced travel times between Fort William and Glasgow.

 

As trains would be calling at Perth and Stirling, connections to Dundee, Edinburgh are available.

 

Fort William services calling at Blair Atholl and Dunkeld & Birnam could speed up some Perth to Inverness services, removing these stops from Inverness services.

 

Abandonment of the split/merge operation in Crianlarich, speeding Oban services up.

 

Routing of all remaining WHL services to Oban, enhancing service levels to Oban.

 

UNDECIDED

 

It is unclear to me how much the tourist appeal of the West Highland line would suffer from the abandonment of the Crianlarich to Tulloch section. While I appreciate that Rannoch moor is beautiful, there aren't exactly many businesses dependend of those extra passengers that would not ride the line if Fort William services would go via Perth instead of via Crianlarich.

 

I am mystified whether Caledonian Sleeper would be routed to Oban instead, perhaps with a connecting bus link to Fort William, or to Fort William via the new line. A removal of Highlander services between Edinburgh and Glasgow would be a considerable Con, I suspect.

 

Rolling stock profile would change, fewer DMUs would be needed to work the Oban section, but Fort William services would need diesel-electro stock for the eventual electrification of the Highland main line. I am not sure whether the total number of trains to be needed would rise eventuallly.

 

So, a lot of guesswork and playing with numbers here. But what do you think, is it an idea worth to persist with? Appreciating these times rail infrastructure projects have a difficult stand, but on the other hand the reopening of the Borders railway was just under a decade ago.

Many years back I read some old Penguin books on several of the Highland lines and there were numerous routes and extensions proposed but never started around the Highlands. Sadly the books are buried in the basement but I have a slight feeling a route similar to this was looked at back in the day. May be others have a better grip on the history of proposed lines in the north of Scotland?