CityCyclingEdinburgh was launched on the 27th of October 2009 as "an experiment".
IT’S TRUE!
CCE is 17years old!
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It soon became useful and entertaining. There are regular posters, people who add useful info occasionally and plenty more who drop by to watch. That's fine. If you want to add news/comments it's easy to register and become a member.
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Don't think it's a big loss to Scotland.
What's needed is Rosyth to Oslo and a rail link to Rosyth dock. Surely this is possible in a 21stC nation?
I note there is an old railway alignment passing under the Ferrytoll gyratory, connecting Inverkeithing to the docks
That's the Rosyth Dockyard branch; it's still extant all the way from Inverkeithing south junction, but is overgrown and mostly single track.
Oslo, Ijmuiden...any connection to the continent would be good.
There's no benefit to duplicating the ~14hour Newcastle to Ijmuiden route, with Rosyth to Ijmuiden taking ~18h.
The ideal route for a long-distance ferry is one that travels overnight, taking 10 to 12 hours - so that you get a good night's sleep, but don't waste any of the next day.
Sure, Rosyth to Stavanger or Olso would take maybe 24+hours, but it cuts off an enormous amount of driving/train on the continent
There's no benefit to duplicating the ~14hour Newcastle to Ijmuiden route
Except there is: it would reduce the additional journey distance and travel time for all passengers in Scotland.
From Edinburgh you can drive or (try to) take the train to North Shields for the ferry to IJmuiden (and taking the train presents all the problems that taking the train to anywhere else in England does). From North Shields, if you go south as far again as you did from Edinburgh, you get to Hull where you can sail to Hoek van Holland. If you go as far again and add maybe another hour, you get to Harwich for the Hoek van Holland ferry.
But somehow anywhere north of Newcastle is out of scope, out of mind. Scotland no longer has any ferries to the continent. It should have a ferry out of Rosyth, and another out of Aberdeen. And if we are being fair about roughly equidistant ferry terminals, perhaps the government could consider building Wick International.
I'm still amazed that you can no longer get a ferry from Shetland to the Faroe Islands, and have to fly. An actual travel itinerary I saw once was ridiculously motorcentric: you were expected take the Lerwick car ferry to Aberdeen, literally drive down to Dover, take the Eurostar to Calais, drive up through Belgium, Germany and Denmark, and take the car ferry from Hirtshals to Tórshavn (which takes 37 hours on its own). Total distance was well over 2000 miles.
Nothing to do with being North of the border, and everything to do with what is a convenient amount time to spend for an overnight crossing.
Ferries are very slow, so it's much quicker to go overland where possible. The only exception is where the journey by ferry can be made overnight, saving yourself a hotel and arriving rested for an early start the next day.
For that reason, the Hull and Harwich ferries are unattractive (to me). Too short to get a decent night's kip, but too long to be attractive versus Eurostar.
If I was going to the bother of going as far as Hull, I'd just stay on the train another 2 hours (from York) and then take the Eurostar (another 2h20).
I'd love for Scotland to be better connected to the continent, but let's make the overnight crossings worthwhile, e.g. to Stavanger or Hamburg
There are frequent and fast trains to Newcastle. There is a connecting bus from Newcastle station to North Shields dock (albeit a service that could be improved)
It's even possible to take the metro from Newcastle station to Meadow Well and walk 1 mile to the Ferry terminal. Trains every 10mins.
Train connectivity to Rosyth is definitely not good.
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