More rail please

The completion of track-laying for the Border railway (your 
report, 13 February) is a significant and welcome milestone. 
Few could have imagined this a decade ago.

When services commence, we understand passengers should be able to travel on the same train service from Tweedbank via Newcraighall and Waverley to Thornton-Glenrothes at the end of the Fife Circle.

Yet here in coastal Fife, a potential catchment of 50,000 people only five miles further up the track to Leven is still waiting for the same “once in a generation” opportunity.

That track is fully intact, with the first mile already carrying freight, but currently mothballed under Network Rail ownership.

The estimate of £76 million investment required to reinstate services is around a quarter of the capital cost of the Borders line.

If the “rail revolution” infrastructure minister Keith Brown has spoken of is truly under way, it must connect major unserved areas such as Levenmouth to the national network, especially when that connection is so easily re-established.

Local people here cannot understand why we are still waiting or how much longer we should be excluded.

(Dr) Allen Armstrong

LevenMouth Rail Campaign

College Street

Buckhaven, Fife