CityCyclingEdinburgh Forum » Infrastructure
“£6 billion Forth rail tunnel between Kirkcaldy and Leith proposed by Greens”
(54 posts)-
Posted 3 years ago #
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Tunnel's a nice idea, if a bit silly. Still, good to see the Greens campaigning on transport matters.
Not sure about this part of the plan:
"The tunnel would be built from between Kirkcaldy and Seafield to Leith, where there would be a station underground stretching from near the waterfront to the foot of Leith Walk. That would be connected to Waverley Station via the former Abbeyhill loop line."I would propose an equally unlikely tunnel between East Wemyss on the Fife coast and Aberlady in East Lothian, where the tunnel would emerge west or south of the Earl of Wemyss' substantial grounds at his palatial pile Gosford House, to join with the ECML via a new junction betwixt Drem and Longniddry. On the Fife side, the existing track bed from Levenmouth could be used to connect to the Fife Circle and points northward. This would potentially allow a completely electrified link between Edinburgh/East Lothian and Dundee, while also offering direct connections from Dundee, Aberdeen and Inversneggy to England without having to pass through either Edinburgh or Glasgow. Added bonus of an aggrieved aristocrat into the bargain. Could call it the Wemyss tunnel too just out of spite.
Posted 3 years ago # -
Greens' Rail for All report: https://greens.scot/sites/default/files/Rail%20For%20All.pdf
A lot of money but you effectively get a Fife coast bypass that would knock about 25 minutes off the fastest Kirkcaldy to Waverley trains, plus it frees up capacity over the Bridge.
Also means you get Edinburgh to Perth down to under an hour (more if double tracked past Newburgh) - not sure how else you do that apart from a new expensive alignment following the M90.
Plenty of room for the northern portal to emerge in a field west of Seafield - bit more crowded for the southern portal at Abbeyhill.
Surprised there wasn't a mention of the Almond/Dalmeny chord though.
Posted 3 years ago # -
“not sure how else you do that apart from a new expensive alignment following the M90.”
Or instead of it!
(Parallel universe)
I think we are now at a point of SERIOUS investment in PT or (because of Covid, and fear of ‘the next pandemic’) plan for less PT use and, perhaps, less desire to travel.
OR fast track to ‘back to the past’ - more car use, so more roads.
Better ‘value for money’ under conventional economics - and more rational ways of looking at things - would probably be spend a LOT of money on urban walking and cycling with all the benefits ‘we’ understand.
Of course, in addition, more ‘local jobs for local people’ - in practice WFH has achieved far more than any job creation/industrial strategy initiatives.
A new rail tunnel might ‘balance’ the years of over-investment in the road system, but it’s probably too late.
Posted 3 years ago # -
@crowriver: ... the tunnel would emerge west or south of the Earl of Wemyss' substantial grounds at his palatial pile Gosford House, to join with the ECML via a new junction betwixt Drem and Longniddry.
Kind of picking up the old alignment of the Aberlady, Gullane and North Berwick Railway?
@chdot: “not sure how else you do that apart from a new expensive alignment following the M90.”
Or instead of it!
Would be an interesting reversal, given that the M90 was built over part of the North British Railway's Glenfarg line.
"Although not recommended for closure under the Beeching Axe, the line nevertheless closed to passengers and freight on 5 January 1970, resulting in slower passenger services to Perth via longer routes." (from Wiki.)
There is a [conspiracy?] theory that the line was closed specifically in order to facilitate the construction of the M90, but the northern section of the motorway was delayed due to the oil crisis. So for about ten years there was neither a fast rail route nor a motorway.
The tunnels by which the Glenfarg line climbed from Bridge of Earn to the village of Glenfarg are still in situ and at least one of them (the northern one I think) can be visited by those of an adventurous disposition. They're shown on the OS map. The motorway didn't use that part of the route, staying further west to climb the scarp slope on the east flank of Balmanno Hill.
Posted 3 years ago # -
Or you could spend £22bn building high quality, high density housing in urban areas, so people can walk or cycle to work, leisure and the shops. Facilitating long-distance commuting, whether by road or rail, is not really "green". The solution to every transport problem isn't always more transport.
Posted 3 years ago # -
“Or you could spend £22bn building high quality, high density housing in urban areas“
Could you?
You mean retrofit plus some new build or ‘slum clearance’ and start again?
Posted 3 years ago # -
A tunnel under the Forth...
This makes the Greens look like a laughing stock, unfortunately.
We cannot build our way out of climate change. Hypermobility is not the answer. The carbon emissions from the concrete to go in it will be vast, for starters - probably outweighing any savings for decades to come. And a new rail link will induce new journeys (as we all know), over and above existing driving and rail journeys.
We have to use less of everything, not more!
They. Just. Don't. Get. It.
Sigh.
Posted 3 years ago # -
“Would be an interesting reversal, given that the M90 was built over part of the North British Railway's Glenfarg line.”
Quite.
“but the northern section of the motorway was delayed due to the oil crisis. So for about ten years there was neither a fast rail route nor a motorway.“
Didn’t know that.
Posted 3 years ago # -
The lack of connection between Tulloch and Dalwhinnie has always seemed completely daft to me. You have to travel 100 miles each way down to Glasgow & back rather than a sub 20 mile train connection.
Presumably there are capacity issues on each of the lines which would need fixing for there to be extra services Perth (or St Andrews) to Mallaig, but still surprised that it's not in the Green's report.
Don't think that adding rail capacity is strictly a bad thing for environment. More mobility in the long term surely desirable if it can be made zero carbon. Arguing for reduced mobility during the misery of lockdown is a hard task.
Posted 3 years ago # -
The lack of connection between Tulloch and Dalwhinnie
Tulloch the suburb of Perth?
Posted 3 years ago # -
It's certainly a good idea to reconnect towns and villages that lost their rail links.
But adding shortcuts, e.g. tunnels / high-speed rail, on top of existing routes is only going to encourage more cauliflower, ostensibly car-based, suburban sprawl developments outside of towns like Kirkcaldy. With those people then commuting ever more vast distances into Edinburgh...
You know, those 5-bed 'luxury' houses, with double garages, 3 cars on every drive, perfectly manicured i.e. sterile lawns, with only really 2 people living there...
Is that what the Greens want?
Posted 3 years ago # -
Arguing for reduced mobility during the misery of lockdown is a hard task.
What makes you think that increasing mobility makes people happy? All it does is drive people further apart. "Beyond a certain speed, motorised vehicles create remoteness that they alone can shrink. They create distances for all and shrink them for only a few" - Ivan Illich, Energy & Equity 1973
During lockdown, we've discovered some lovely things in the local area (by walking / cycling) and realised that we have so much here, right on our doorstep. To the point where we are questioning why we ever felt the need to go on annual foreign holidays.
Posted 3 years ago # -
“Arguing for reduced mobility during the misery of lockdown is a hard task.“
Depends.
Minimal mobility now (for most people).
Clearly there will be a rush for ‘what we have missed’ - notably holidays.
But WFH, exploring/shopping locally will persist with some.
BIG issue is how much ‘the plan’ will be ‘back to the past ASAP’ or a more thoughtful approach.
In reality there will be (almost) no plan by SG or Westminster.
The biggest, as yet, unknown is how much people will be willing to return to buses and trains rather than cars.
Clearly if miraculously/instantly there was great walk/cycle infrastructure AND road pricing, things would be different.
An expensive project offering some (fairly) local benefits isn’t really a ‘green’ idea.
Does Birmingham need to be better ‘connected’ to London, Edinburgh to Perth?
What about Newcastle-Carlisle, Liverpool-Hull, Inverness-Thurso??
Posted 3 years ago # -
As far as I understand it, not a single Scottish railway line covers its full operating costs - although Edinburgh-Glasgow gets close. Expand the rail network and you likely increase the amount of annual revenue support effectively forever.
This isn't an argument against targeted rail expansion. I see it as an investment rather than an expense. However, there is a finite pot of cash - supporting current ScotRail services costs around £0.5bn per year (Network Rail adds almost another £0.5bn). How much would these schemes add to that cost? Is that the best use of this cash. What about bus services? Four times the passengers of rail, but roughly a half of the taxpayer support (a quarter if you include Network Rail costs). Buses are used more by the less well-off, while rail is the opposite.
I think taking a more holistic view of the country's transport needs would have been better - where do people travel, why and what interventions are actually needed (transport or otherwise).
Posted 3 years ago # -
"High speeds for all means that everybody has less time for himself as the whole society spends a growing slice of its time budget on moving people...
The allure of speed has deceived the passenger into accepting the promises made by an industry that produces capital intensive traffic. He is convinced that high-speed vehicles have allowed him to progress beyond the limited autonomy he enjoyed when moving under his own power...
The passenger who agrees to live in a world monopolised by transport becomes a harassed, overburdened consumer of distances whose shape and length he can no longer control"
- Ivan Illich, "Energy and Equity," 1973
Posted 3 years ago # -
“Energy & Equity“
Now there’s an influential book!
Should I re-read it?
Posted 3 years ago # -
“I think taking a more holistic view of the country's transport needs would have been better - where do people travel, why and what interventions are actually needed (transport or otherwise).“
Yes.
Plus (not actually excluded by your words) where more/different might be considered - which is why I mentioned Inverness -Thurso.
Inverness is Scotland’s fastest growing settlement. I presume there is some interest in improving transport northwards and not just ‘to the Central Belt/London’.
Though how much rail rather than bus improvement is the best thing would need to be considered.
“
The question is should their be a Dornoch Rail Bridge?
“
https://www.railforums.co.uk/threads/dornoch-rail-bridge.52459/
Posted 3 years ago # -
> I think taking a more holistic view of the country's transport needs would have been better - where do people travel, why and what interventions are actually needed (transport or otherwise).
The proposed route bypasses a railway bridge and station that are both already at capacity, takes fast trains off a local rail corridor whose poor frequency and reliability was driving people into their cars and massively shortcuts past a new gold-plated trunk road bridge which has seen a big increase in traffic since completion. It proposes building a new inter-city station with direct links to London, Aberdeen and Inverness in one of the most dense urban areas in Europe and would connect with Edinburgh's growing tram network. Sounds pretty holistic to me!
Wouldn't be the first tunnel under the Forth. Crossrail is up to 40m deep - the Forth is no deeper over that section. Not for the likes of us?
Posted 3 years ago # -
I wonder if the Greens aren't, rather than trying to propose an actual bit of transport infrastructure, trying to put the departure of Andy Wightman from their party into the past rather than the forefront of people's minds?
As folk are pointing out the green approach is first to reduce the need and desire for travel.
Posted 3 years ago # -
“The proposed route bypasses a railway bridge and station that are both already at capacity“
Well yes but.
Passenger capacity over the bridge was mostly due to lack of rolling stock - relatively cheap to fix.
The big question now is how many former/potential passengers will return to trains because of ‘fear’ and/WFH?
“Not for the likes of us?”
In a UK context, pretty much - unless you live in/near London.
Posted 3 years ago # -
If this was an AW distraction tactic then it showed incredible foresight to commission the report months before his sudden departure.
Perhaps the Greens should propose that existing travel restrictions are made permanent and a speed limit of 30mph is applied to all forms of transport, then sit back and wait for the majority to roll in.
> Passenger capacity over the bridge was mostly due to lack of rolling stock - relatively cheap to fix.
In the short term, perhaps. Frequency is still an issue - especially when driving over the shiny new bridge is the alternative. But in the medium term there are only so many trains that can fit over a 50mph section of double track, especially when it has to accommodate everything from slow stopping services to the longest train route in Britain.
If the longer-term fight is polarised to 'just travel less' and 'let cars on the Forth Road Bridge again' I know who my money's on.
Posted 3 years ago # -
“If the longer-term fight is polarised to 'just travel less' and 'let cars on the Forth Road Bridge again' I know who my money's on.“
Sure, under current ‘more of the same’ politics.
Whether that changes because of ‘voter demand’ or ‘political leadership’ is difficult to predict - and hard to imagine.
Under current ‘management’ - SNP SG and Conservative WM - little chance of a Forth Tunnel being funded - even in a world where a Scotland-NI bridge is a ‘possibility’ (whatever people on here might like).
Posted 3 years ago # -
Greens' Rail for All report: https://greens.scot/sites/default/files/Rail%20For%20All.pdf
First impressions not helped by a typo (or Freudian slip?) on page 2...
"1.i Steamline decision-making processes and rebalance them in favour of rail"
Posted 3 years ago # -
We cannot build our way out of climate change, particularly not with mega-projects. (There may be scope for low-carbon incremental improvements, provided existing high-carbon alternatives are inhibited or wound down.)
Regardless of what people currently "think" is going to be popular, we have to do this. We have to reduce the need to travel.
By 2025, the level of CO2 in the atmosphere is expected to reach 427ppm (currently 415ppm), a level not seen since the peak of the Pliocene warming period, 3.3 million years ago. Back then, global temperatures were 2 to 4 degrees hotter and sea levels 20 metres higher. (Why doesn't anyone seem to be scared senseless by this? - Ed)
It is likely that no hominoid has ever experienced such an environment.
We cannot continue like this...
WE. HAVE. TO. STOP.
Posted 3 years ago # -
“We cannot continue like this...”
Clearly people who ‘follow the science’ don’t understand this (enough).
“WE. HAVE. TO. STOP.”
Car. High speed. Brick wall.
Posted 3 years ago # -
I think it's a lot easier to imagine a shift in support from road to rail over the next decade than it is to imagine support for commencing the entire reconfiguration of our economy to eliminate the need for long-distance travel. Are we really saying that the Greens should go into the May election, after over a year of pandemic restrictions, arguing that people should stop going on domestic holidays and visit relatives less? Rejecting this kind of unrealistic, utopian and deeply unpopular thinking is exactly how the SGP has become one of the most electorally successful Green parties in Europe and - crucially - able to actually have influence on policy, forcing the introduction of things like the Workplace Parking Levy.
There's a lot more to this report than an ambitious tunnel and it has clearly been carefully thought through. There's lots of projects proposed across the country for local campaigns to seize on, which may not appear essential on a national level but will really make sense to the people in the areas they'll affect. There's talk at the start about reducing legal overheads and barriers which don't exist for roads - something cycle campaigners can absolutely sympathise with - and on how we simply need to invest in already existing electrification and improvement projects to decarbonise and modernise the network now, something the SNP drag their feet on at every opportunity. Unless we plan to rip up the rail network in the next 30 years, this is an unambiguous climate win.
Of course, the Greens are unlikely to win a majority in May, so this has to be viewed as a negotiation position; a stick in the ground. Instead of simply being anti-A9, anti-FRB-reopening and anti-Sheriffhall this reframes the narrative positively - why are we spending money on the A9 when we should be spending it on the Highland Main Line? Why are we spending money on the Bypass when we could be reopening the South Sub? And why spend money on more road capacity over the Forth when we could be building genuinely transformational rail infrastructure instead to take cars and lorries off the roads?
Yes - "under current management" we will probably get more business-as-usual for the next decade. But this sort of thing will, at the very least, make the argument for it that little bit harder.
Posted 3 years ago # -
business-as-usual for the next decade
The trouble is, it's all far too little, far too late @jonty
Climate scientists are literally screaming at us, "EMERGENCY!"
And yet everyone else seems to be going, "la la la, sometime next decade, bla bla bla"
Greta's tweet sums it up nicely:
https://twitter.com/GretaThunberg/status/1348921010859470848?s=20
Don't shoot the messenger...
Posted 3 years ago # -
“Car. High speed. Brick wall.”
Posted 3 years ago # -
@IWARTS no, not that Tulloch, this Tulloch, basically connecting Highland Main Line to West Highland line :
https://www.google.com/maps/dir/Dalwhinnie+PH19+1AB/Tulloch,+Roy+Bridge+PH31+4AR/@56.949002,-4.6124635,11z/data=!3m1!4b1!4m14!4m13!1m5!1m1!1s0x488f34fae0dca4fd:0xf5fe43098609e881!2m2!1d-4.242783!2d56.936604!1m5!1m1!1s0x488f2a539d1765bd:0xcdbd0458c169159e!2m2!1d-4.70171!2d56.8841972!3e1
Posted 3 years ago #
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