Letter: Scrap it now

With the ongoing fiasco of the Edinburgh Trams project staring the Scottish Government in the face, isn't it time to call a halt to the proposed Borders Railway (your report, 16 June) before a similar situation occurs?

Lib Dem transport spokesman Jim Hume is quoted as saying: "This project is vital for the Borders." Why? Houses are no longer being built due to the recession, so the proposed "commuter belt" will not materialise in the foreseeable future.

I live in Kelso and have yet to speak to anybody outwith the Galashiels area who would drive to Tweedbank, park their car (no doubt paying for the privilege to do so) and take a train to Edinburgh.

The population of the eastern Borders already have rail links to Edinburgh via Berwick-on-Tweed; those in Peebles and the northerly areas of the Borders will not drive south to get a train back to the north, leaving a very small customer base in and around the central Borders to fund what will no doubt end up becoming a huge financial disaster.

S Guthrie

Inchmead Drive

Kelso

Your alarmist headline seems designed to encourage support for your campaign to have the Borders Railway cancelled.

Instead of thinking short-term, you ought to be actively campaigning for the Waverley line to be reinstated to Carlisle, with a new link connecting directly to the hugely successful (saved!) Settle-Carlisle line in order to provide a freight route to free up additional passenger train paths on the increasingly busy main lines into Scotland.

Millions of tonnes of timber are to be harvested from the Kielder Forest, and other plantations, in the coming decades and, with replanting, this traffic is set to continue for centuries.

A timber railhead connected to a reopened Waverley route would transfer enormous amounts of this timber traffic from road to rail. But to safeguard this massive opportunity, the identification and protection of a new rail alignment past Hawick is an essential top priority, together with investment now to stabilise the roof-fall near the south portal of the Whitrope tunnel. Priceless assets are being allowed to deteriorate.

Nineteenth-century rail network expansion fuelled Britain's economic growth. Modern rail network (re)expansion will fuel our future growth.

John Duncan CEng MSc MICE MASCE

Rose Street North Lane

Edinburgh