Railing against Border line bitterness

How bitter his words sound as he trots out ill-informed and inaccurate invective against a project that will bring genuine benefits to a swathe of communities.

Every other sentence is laced with speculation masquerading as fact, vitriol disguised as reporting, and insult to the dignity of those working on this project and those who will use it and make it the success it deserves to be.

Others will, I’m sure quite rightly, take issue with the numerous points of error.

Simon Walton

Campaign for Borders Rail

Fountainhall

Ah – another blast from the Monteithian past! If anything convinced me the Borders Railway ought to be built it wasn’t just the horrors of the X95 bus-commute, or the prospect of paying £7,000 a year to dice with death as a motorist on the A7. (Do the maths, Brian: that’s an annual bill of £16 billion and counting for Scottish private cars alone.)

Comparing the market ideology of Brian and his buddy Dr Richard Wellings (who wants to scrap HS2, and most of ScotRail) with the success of Baden-Wuerttemberg does the trick.

Daimler-Benz Land invests in regional rail – not just reopenings but electrification and tram-trains from Karlsruhe to the top of the Black Forest (an area rather like the Borders, but prospering).

We have more than 30 per cent in manufacturing; post-Thatcher Scotland has 10 per cent. F A Hayek voted with his feet when, despite his economics, he ended up in Freiburg, the greenest city in Germany.

An example, surely, for Brian to tak’ tent of… and rail passengers in Scotland, despite pricey fares, are up by 45 per cent over the last decade!

Chris Harvie

Professor of Regional Studies

University of Tuebingen

Germany

David Spaven (Letters, 17 September) says trains are a superior form of transport. However, many people have no easy access to them and/or cannot afford to travel on them.

About 90 per cent of public transport trips are by bus. Even when the rail service exists that figure will apply to the Borders. He says all train services lose money.

That is not a good reason to provide new lines, when the Government rightly seeks to reduce subsidies, mostly paid for by people who rarely use trains. When social inequality is at record levels and public funds far below needs, to spend any of these to benefit a tiny and relatively affluent minority is surely risible.

The name “Borders Railway” is misleading. It will serve only a small portion of the area. We do not call the line to Stranraer the “Galloway Railway”.

There is a huge difference between subsidising services on existing routes, where the infrastructure exists, and doing so where such has to be built.

Mr Spaven says this project will be the longest rail one in UK for more than a century. We should ask why this is so.

Surely it is because such projects are not deemed justifiable.

What is so different about the Borders from countless other sparsely peopled regions that it justifies an exception? That should be explained.

His comparisons with recently new lines are irrelevant. The Alloa one was built mainly to carry coal and is short, as is the Larkhall line. Both are in areas of high population.

Whether the Airdrie-Bathgate route has been justified is dubious. Most of the trains are under 20 per cent full. Some of the new stations have only minuscule passenger numbers.

Comparing the time taken by bus to get to Edinburgh with that taken by trains in the past is invalid. The latter did not have to use city streets for part of their route.

Similar total trip times could be attained by terminating the railway near Newtongrange and providing a bus interchange there.

Euan Bremner

Bridge Street

Kelso