Posted 10th September 2024 | 2 Comments
Tuesday briefing: Borders Railway extension on hold to save money
Borders ambitions frustrated
A feasibility study into extending the Borders Railway from Tweedbank to Carlisle has been put on hold, as part of the Government’s plan to close an alleged ‘funding gap’ of £22 billion in the public finances. Other railway reopening schemes on the Restoring Your Railway list have already been suspended, although work has continued on Mid Cornwall Metro, where a second platform is now being built at Newquay. The Cornish scheme escaped the Treasury axe because it is being funded with almost £50 million from the separate Levelling Up fund. The Northumberland Line is also set to reopen soon between Ashington and Newcastle.
Railway to close for landslip work
A section of railway in Kent will be closed for four days at the end of next month, so that work to prevent landslips can be carried out. The possession, from 31 October to 3 November, will allow engineers to build a 200m sheet pile wall near East Farleigh, and other renewals will be made while the line is closed. Buses will replace trains between Paddock Wood and Maidstone West.
Greater Anglia life-saving classes
Greater Anglia is showing its support for World Suicide Prevention Day today, by training more staff in suicide prevention to help keep people safe on the railway. Staff have already helped to save 20 lives so far this year by helping vulnerable or distressed people. In the last three years, 141 GA staff have completed Samaritans’ managing suicidal contacts course, and another session is being held at Norwich tomorrow, using Greater Anglia trainers.
Reader Comments:
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Harper (Kenneth John), Kelso
The reason the Borders line needs to be completed to Carlisle is goods traffic. If the WCML is to take HS2 then there will be no capacity in daylight hours for goods, the ECML is as bad. Yet the Government wants freight off the roads ? the S/C and reopened Waverley route gives that capacity while the GSWR route has connectivity issues particularly to the North and East of Scotland. The Waverley route needs one freight path each way, plus an hourly Carlisle - Edinburgh path. An additional hourly path Tweedbank to Edinburgh would also be needed.
king arthur, buckley
The gap in public finances never concerned the Labour Party in previous times. I attended a number of seminars where speakers affiliated with the party decried 'Tory cuts', and insisted that infrastructure spending on the railway was sound economic policy and that trains were an essential and 'empowering' public service. Let's not forget, this is a party that semonises about modern monetary theory.
There are many reasons why completion of the Borders Railway is a good idea, and there are far too many to list here. Perhaps we are just witnessing (yet again) that the Labour Party actually do not believe in public transport, 'sustainable travel', and have no ambitions beyond turning the railway into a state controlled monolith no different from BR?