Late and over budget, but rail link back on track

Published on Tuesday 13 May 2008 22:10

IT IS regarded by ministers as one of the most important railway projects in Scotland for decades, but when it is officially opened tomorrow it will be two and a half years late and cost more than double the expected price tag.

The Stirling-Alloa-Kincardine line is just 13 miles of mainly single-track line, but will cost the taxpayer 85 million.

The first train is also a long time coming. Despite having been approved in 2004 – the first rail project after devolution – passengers will get their first taste of the service next Monday, when they should have been using it three Christmases ago.

While rail industry chiefs will hail the project's completion at a ceremony at Alloa station tomorrow morning, experts have warned that it has potentially serious implications for the Scottish Government's plans for other new rail lines. These include routes between Edinburgh and the Borders, and from Glasgow to the city's main airport.

The Alloa scheme was conceived to free more space on key commuter lines by creating a direct route for slow coal trains traversing the Central Belt from Hunterston port in Ayrshire to Longannet power station, near Kincardine in Fife. Taking the 45mph trains off the main Edinburgh-Glasgow express line and the Forth Bridge, where they slow to 20mph, is expected to improve passenger train punctuality and free space to enable services from Edinburgh to both Aberdeen and Perth to double in frequency from December.

In addition, hourly passenger trains will run on the western half of the new line, between Stirling and Alloa, restoring rail travel to Clackmannanshire after a gap of 40 years. Direct trains will run to Glasgow, with passengers changing at Stirling for Edinburgh.

Annual passenger projections have more than doubled on earlier estimates, with 155,000 expected to travel in the first year, rising to 245,000 within three years.

Scott Prentice, the senior project manager for Transport Scotland, said: "The business case for the line was a more efficient route for coal trains, but the absolute beauty of the project is that it provides passenger trains to Alloa at marginal extra cost."

Clackmannanshire Council said housebuilding had boomed because of the line, with property prices rising by 135 per cent – higher than the rest of Scotland – over the last five years.

Locals flocked to bridges along the route to see the first coal train on a test trip last month, and a straw poll yesterday found a generally warm welcome for the line in Alloa, with people saying they would use the new service.

Margaret Downie, who remembers the station being closed in 1968, said: "It's going to be a great thing and should help businesses. The line should never have been closed, and we have lost a lot of industry since."

Charlotte Ross, who has also lived in the town since the railway was closed, said: "It is great that it's coming back to Alloa – it will be good for the town to have the train back."

Roderick Mackenzie, from nearby Tullibody, said: "I normally drive to Stirling to get a train to Edinburgh or Glasgow, but the car park is very congested, so this will make getting the train much easier."

Jackie Burns, another Alloa resident, said any such development was a good thing, but she doubted whether the 85 million cost was money well spent.

Alexandra Hutton said: "It will be good for people not to have to travel by car," while Florence McGregor said: "It will take traffic off the roads. Everything seems to double in price these days."

However, the rosy outlook masks the project's unhappy gestation, and industry experts said lessons must be learned.

The scheme was originally run by Clackmannanshire Council – Scotland's smallest local authority with no rail experience. A series of other bodies then became involved before Scottish Government's Transport Scotland agency took it over to complete the job last year.

Along the way, a catalogue of cost increases and delays has been caused by apparently unforeseen problems or changes, which have seen costs soar from an original 37 million.

Major factors included the stabilisation of old mineworkings costing up to four times original expectations, the design of a level crossing being changed at a late stage, difficulties with integrating the line with existing signalling and wrangles over compensation for landowners.

To cap it all, there were also plans for extra charges for coal trains so they contributed to the cost of the line – leading the railfreight firm EWS to threaten to boycott the route until the tolls were dropped.

Dr Jon Shaw, the director of the Centre for Sustainable Transport at Plymouth University, said streamlined project management was required.

He said: "Rail projects cost up to 40 per cent more in Britain than the rest of Europe, as they have done for a century. The cost of the Borders line is going to shoot up and I expect the Glasgow airport rail link to cost more too.

"The way they are run is too complicated, so the best thing would be for them to come under much tighter Transport Scotland control. The agency should also control Network Rail's infrastructure as well as its spending."

David Bytheway, who is writing a book on the project, said: "This project shows that the organisational structure should have been simplified and all costs been made known at the start."

Derek Halden, a consultant involved in feasibility work for the Alloa line, said: "It is still not clear who is responsible to the taxpayer for the costs of the scheme. Transport Scotland pays the bills, but Network Rail is responsible for the specification. With the mismatch of accountability and responsibility it is hardly surprising that the costs have risen."

Bill Reeve, Transport Scotland's director of rail delivery, said: "As one of the first significant rail infrastructure projects in Scotland for many years, there were always going to be valuable lessons to be learned. A key lesson is that client organisations need expertise and experience. Transport Scotland was created to meet that need."

Mr Reeve agreed the governance of the project was over-complex and resulted in slow decision making. He said such lessons had been incorporated into other major rail projects.