Scotland beating rest of UK on rail progress

In the last decade or so there have been re-openings of passenger rail routes.Not in any particular order I include....

Glasgow-Edinburgh via Airdrie.
Larkhall line.
Maryhill suburban-Glasgow.
Borders Line (over 30 miles!).
Alloa line.
.. Now the Leven branch to be brought back for passengers.

Anyone getting envious?!

Yes I am, I want to someday visit your country and see your fine Railroads, I live in So California, where they build a Railroad from somewhere to nowhere geographically speaking....And they don't know when they'll finish it.....But we know how to rip out perfectly good Rail Road Routes in the name of progress.. IE the Red Car, White Car 350 Mile line that could get you anywhere in So Calif from Sea to Mountains etc......

https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-d&q=california+high+speed+rail+issues

https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-d&q=Old+Red+car+Rail+lines

Oh and here is the fantastic Map showing where this once great RR was laid out too.....

https://la.curbed.com/2015/11/9/9902244/red-car-map-los-angeles

And we now have a light rail line that should have been connected to Los Angeles Airport as promised, and now 20-30 years later, after they found out it did work out so well with Taxi and Bus connections, we are making the final 5-10 miles connection to the Airport, Oh I forgot, conveniently it will cost us more money....Can I cry fowl here, no I guess not.....!!!!!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aviation/LAX_station

Excuse me for a me minute, I think I just got sick and need to use the facilities....Be right back....

I hope your Rail Lines continue to flourish, good for the Scots........Ah for us, in the USA across from the Pond, we can't even get a Bullet Train built over here....Pretty sad commentary I would say, wouldn't you, for what is thought to be the richest nation on earth.....I think we have a problem for Can do and the Job is #1 when it comes to high speed trains, in fact, our fastest is the Acela by Amtrak 130 or more MPH but only in a small business Corridor, so tell me, what is wrong with this picture, our we kicking ourselves in the !@#$%^& or what, I don't know......????????????

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acela_Express

By all means check out this Wiki on what it says about actual speeds of our only high speed train.....I just moved some cobwebs in my brain, I'm old what can I say, LOL.,
but there was also a provision to make a high speed desert train from LA and or San Francisco to Las Vegas Nevada, our bordering state, never happened with all stupid environmental and idiotic Red Tape.......:'(

NEWS FLASH< OMG Richard Branson might help make this a reality, something like Space X and NASA changes in our rather paltry Space program.....

In this April 4, 2019, file photo, Richard Branson, of Virgin Group, prepares to unfurl a banner during a naming ceremony for the Brightline train station, to be renamed as Virgin Miami Central, in Miami.

https://abcnews.go.com/US/high-speed-california-las-vegas-train-plan/story?id=65264856

After a number of fits and starts, plans for a high-speed train connecting California and Las Vegas are back on track. Representatives say the project will take about three years to complete.



The announcement was made at the Nevada Economic Development Conference on Tuesday.

The train will travel at speeds up to 150 miles per hour, making the nonstop trip between the Victor Valley region of California and the Las Vegas Strip in about 75-90 minutes, according to Las Vegas ABC affiliate KTNV.

As it is, for me to travel to Las Vegas from Los Angeles Ca, it is somewhere to 5-6 hours with Traffic.....This would be great if it could be done by Train, I would goto Las Vegas at least 2-3 times a year, now I only go once every other year, since our traffic here in California is the worst in the nation, and oh yes, we have a serious pot hole problem too...

We can promote the Olympics here, but we can't fix our stupid pot holes.......Can you believe that, so yes to your first question, am I jealous, well a little bit, but really, I am happy for you all, I know how important good Train Transportation is, only grew up around great railroads all my life, so I think I have a healthy understanding of how and why they work so well, when the powers to be make the right decisions on both sides of the fence..:hehe:

Thank you for sharing your thoughts and the progress of the Rail re openings, have a drink for me too....I might need one after writing my Diatribe here......

You have a blessed and wonderful weekend Sir, and please if you can, keep us posted on the good news, it helps me, and I think others to keep our Dreams coming, that maybe one day we too, can have something nice to say in the Rail Service restoration........

From the Pond across from you, Cheers my friend.:wave:

There were many lines closed by Beeching and his cronies that shouldn't have been and the powers that be are only starting to realise that now.

There is still a possibility that the Edinburgh to Tweedbank line will extend to Carlisle. What a loss the route was. If they had pruned the Waverley Route the same way they did to Salisbury - Exeter then after several decades of struggling along as a largely single track line it would at least have still been there as a base on which to climb back. Timber trains might have run from Riccarton or even a stub of the former BCR towards Kielder. In my own area it has taken around a decade to get Network rail to build one new station on the Durham coastal route, the business case for which was made around 2007. Moving to Lancashire, the campaign to reinstate the line from Blackburn beyond Colne to Skipton continues to be kept from fruition, despite repeated promises of support. That line would greatly increase economic opportunity for Blackburn - Colne by giving access to Leeds and West Yorkshire, with at least one freight operator saying that they'd jump at the chance to route their Mersey - Humber trains away from the congested transpennine routes which means slow inefficient operation. Down south "the varsity line", which ran from Oxford to Cambridge and lost in the late 1960s has had a very long gestation towards re-instatement but even now is somewhat short of halfway built. Down in the Southwest government and NR have very quickly swept under the carpet the issue of connectivity west of Exeter. It is as if the 2014 storm closure at Dawlish, which cost the UK economy £1.2 billion never happened. So much for the "money is no object" speech by the then PM Cameron. Almost six years on there is not even a hint of a plan to reinstate the Okehampton route or even dust off the 1930s GWR diversion cancelled on the outbreak of WWII.

KotangaGirl said:

There were many lines closed by Beeching and his cronies that shouldn't have been and the powers that be are only starting to realize that now.

Click to expand...

:wave: Hello KotangaGirl,

Hope you are doing OK there, as for your surmise of dumb decision making, by the inept, and totally ill informed, etc, etc, over here same issue with Green Line Light Rail to LAX, all was to be great, we could catch a train out in our Valley, 25 miles away from LA, once downtown, bitterly walk off that Train, and down one Escalator to Light Rail underground, and head to end of the line at Los Angeles Airport, but no, the powers to be said, ya know what, will make it end 5 miles away and Quick Bus connection or Taxi will connect you to the Airport!!

R u kidding me, for one who grew up riding bus's to Los Angeles, and sometimes waiting 1 to 1.5 hours on Weekends to catch connecting Bus, sorry, no thank you, and Taxi's U mm, they are not cheap anymore, like everything else, it cost's extra, even more so, because you have your Airport Luggage (hello) so you have to have the special Taxi that handles Luggage, yup that's right, we can't fit it all in A Prius, well, we wouldn't even try it..:hehe:

Now 20 or more years later, they found out, that Bus's and Taxi's were not working out, labor negotiations, strikes etc, ,and host of other issues...Excuses I say, not reality, when they should have done the logical step of running Light Rail up to Airport, I have been to many airports that have light rail connections to the city, and they work flawlessly....

Yes they can be crowded at times, but what Bus or Freeway for that matter? Isn't

In fact, and I forgot to mention this UBER is not picking up at one of major airports as of month ago, why you say, well, UBER says the airport raised their Fees to Taxi co, for pickup and drop offs, so UBER is not going to pay increase....Hows that for those that depended on a large Taxi company, now what do they do......

https://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-airport-uber-parking-revenue-20190301-story.html

https://www.google.com/search?sourc...hUKEwiJ_eeMvvTkAhWyCjQIHfx7BQkQ4dUDCAc&uact=5

KotangaGirl,

I wish you good luck with the closed lines, maybe if the tracks are still there, they can reopen, unlike over here, they rip them out and then come back, it'll cost 1-3 Million a mile to build a whole new system in old ROW, which is a bunch of Bunk if you ask me, but you know, rebuild something old, and NEW CODES for Building have to be observed, which is overdone and costly.......

I believe in the KISS philosophy (KEEP IT SIMPLE STUPID) but you know I don't get to chose that one very often..........

Take care over there........

Cheers

Well firstly blueodessey I thought you would be envious! I have in my house here in Glasgow a very thick book dated back in the 1950's listing all the rail companies in America and what you have now is a groan!Here in Gt Britain we have had had massive increases in rail travel in modern times. My city is also great for suburban rail as well and the majority electrified. When that long shut Alloa line was brought back after decades of removed passenger and had become a freight only thing has now been electrified. They did an interesting thing when electrifying the line by only doing the overhead stuff during the night so routine services would be fine for the population.

And now add a comment to you borderreiver (!).

It took an awful long fight to get that 30 plus mile line re-laid and brought back into use. Was sad had been long dead and yes I know there are people keen to get the rest of the old track-bed beyond Tweebank and the elderly lady who helped lead the fight for track back to there has said to fans further on to be as determined as she and others were and if there was a more serious thing done about that woud be terrific getting back to Carlisle. A while back i seen public comments about looking into that but not very much more than that.

Can sympathise with the comments on Beeching whilste having to say that in honesty there were places that were long goe for passenger use and that included where I then lived here in Glasgow! During the time the then government employed Beeching the then opposition condemned what he came out with and the mass closures so they said they would reveres much of it. Like typical mouthy politicians they did absolutely sod all.

Although we are not a big population part of Gt Britain we have actually had more re-openings successful than England, Wales and Northern Ireland. Ulster was the worst are a losing nearly 75% from 1948 onwards. So I hope other parts up here will be fought for and be added to our great list!

borderreiver said:

There is still a possibility that the Edinburgh to Tweedbank line will extend to Carlisle. What a loss the route was. If they had pruned the Waverley Route the same way they did to Salisbury - Exeter then after several decades of struggling along as a largely single track line it would at least have still been there as a base on which to climb back. Timber trains might have run from Riccarton or even a stub of the former BCR towards Kielder. In my own area it has taken around a decade to get Network rail to build one new station on the Durham coastal route, the business case for which was made around 2007. Moving to Lancashire, the campaign to reinstate the line from Blackburn beyond Colne to Skipton continues to be kept from fruition, despite repeated promises of support. That line would greatly increase economic opportunity for Blackburn - Colne by giving access to Leeds and West Yorkshire, with at least one freight operator saying that they'd jump at the chance to route their Mersey - Humber trains away from the congested transpennine routes which means slow inefficient operation. Down south "the varsity line", which ran from Oxford to Cambridge and lost in the late 1960s has had a very long gestation towards re-instatement but even now is somewhat short of halfway built. Down in the Southwest government and NR have very quickly swept under the carpet the issue of connectivity west of Exeter. It is as if the 2014 storm closure at Dawlish, which cost the UK economy £1.2 billion never happened. So much for the "money is no object" speech by the then PM Cameron. Almost six years on there is not even a hint of a plan to reinstate the Okehampton route or even dust off the 1930s GWR diversion cancelled on the outbreak of WWII.

Click to expand...

So true, and meanwhile upward of £100 billion is ploughed into the increasingly white elephant HS2 line from London to Birmingham. You could have all of this for half the price!

Paul

Firstly to you blueodessey can I say that for the last decade or so our 11,000 odd miles have massively increased and unlike across the pond passeger is the main rail thing whilst over there it is freight. Scotland has as I have pointed out been the most fortunate to have had lines brought back and hope that down south they will ee some of that.

Think paulsw2 is very right on HS2 which I think frankly is a financial waste of d---- time. The costs we are presently hearing are terrible and just think how that would contribute to bringing back lines all over the place. I do have to equally say that there were lines back in the Beeching days that were pointless and I knew of them up here too but I do sympathise with the overly hard massacre that happened. So come on you folk down south catch up on what I have shown happening north of the kingdom!