Letters: Railway realities

The news that a second contractor has pulled out of the over-budget Borders Railway project (your report, 17 June) raises the question of why a long-term contract cannot be agreed on this line, even though civil engineering businesses are crying out for work.

The answer lies in the economic realities laid out in the recently published McNulty Report. Rail in country areas is simply unbelievably expensive for the taxpayer.

This report into the UK rail industry produces the data that has been long been suppressed. Costs overall in UK rail are 30 per cent higher than in other countries, and Regional Rail (Scotrail is part of this subgroup) takes 61 per cent of the massive 3.3 billion subsidy, yet carries only 20 per cent of the passengers.

This means that on average every regional mile has a 31.1p subsidy from the taxpayer to the traveller.

The 295m Borders Railway on that measure will mean that a 6 fare for the 40 miles from Galashiels to Edinburgh will carry at least a 12 subsidy; but, as a rural railway with very low population for most of its length, the Borders passengers will likely be much worse, taking via the state well over 20 per trip, often in near empty trains for much of the day.

Related costs per passenger mile, the measure the report prefers, will be among the worst in the network.

The "not for profit" model for this line cannot hide the fact that there will be no profits and very likely huge running losses, for the contractor or taxpayer or both.

Transport Scotland needs to read McNulty and consider a radical review of this doomed project; for, as he says, a besetting failure of transport projects is to dismiss better alternatives early and to plough on regardless of true costs and benefits. That is turning out to be the real destination of the Borders Railway.

Peter Smaill

Currie Mains House

Borthwick, Midlothian

What on earth has The Scotsman got against the Borders Railway?

I'm genuinely baffled after the latest hostile headlines and editorials (16 June). Why back the roads lobby and retireds with 4x4s who think their idyll will be disturbed, rather than Midlothian and central Borders communities?

Why oppose what is a modest, green, very limited restoration of what was no branch line but the main line to Carlisle when, among many reasons:

Just drive on the A7 to Gala at night or in fog, and be instantly converted; no other rail restoration saw such strong campaigning from communities and their representatives over 40 years, leading directly to the 2006 Act, backed almost unanimously by MSPs; it's the most, not the least, needed Scottish rail restoration, whose loss dealt a lasting blow to the whole area's economy. There wasn't a squeak about the cost- lier Glasgow-Edinburgh link via Airdrie, running through areas of political clout, unlike Midlothian and the Borders; the money saved if it wasn't built wouldn't go anywhere else, given its funding system; it's the largest populated area of Scotland without rail services.

This opposition is bizarre.

Sarah Nelson

Comely Bank Road

Edinburgh