So how much longer for the South Sub?
CityCyclingEdinburgh Forum » Debate!
"After 40 years St Andrews is a step closer to rail travel"
(23 posts)-
Posted 11 years ago #
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Jane-Ann Liston has been campaigning for STARlink for at least the last 20 years. (I grew up in the town). I personally think that a rail link for St Andrews would not really be particularly useful.
It would (I guess) take back the route that's currently a nice cycle-walking path from Leuchars to St A; it would be hard to get a frequent enough service to make it worth people's while (how many trains to Edinburgh a day do you think would go direct to St A?) and the money could be better invested elsewhere (I'm sure we all have ideas).
Yes there are times of year when the area gets very congested with cars - usually major golf championships - but if people aren't prepared to do the park-and-ride or train-and-bus to these things at the moment, I don't think that a train-to-St-A will make a massive difference. Or people come for a holiday and want to be able to get out of St A, which for many, means having a car to get around.
Posted 11 years ago # -
The problem with the Starlink idea is the line doesn't go anywhere else. If they reinstated the line to say Tayport, looped round to St. Andrews, maybe extend from Wormit along the banks of the Tay to Newburgh and join the line to Perth, then it might be useful. A north Fife loop.
As it is, the spur to St Andrews alone is not viable methinks.
Posted 11 years ago # -
"not viable methinks"
That of course assumes that transport projects follow any sort of 'normal' 'economic' logic/scrutiny.
Case for things like the tram, HS2, Aberdeen bypass etc. based on all sorts of assumptions, guesstimates and, perhaps, wishful thinking!
Case against getting passengers back on the South Sub (existing railway) was largely that it 'would only attract the same number of people as the 38 bus'.
Posted 11 years ago # -
Well let them build a tram/light rail then, and Fife council run the construction with strictly capped government funding, not a penny more, etc. Er.....maybe not, eh?
Posted 11 years ago # -
£68 million I saw quoted, for a short dead-end ine that replaces a perfectly good, frequent, cheap bus service?
I lived in St Andrews for 5 years, it really does not need the rail link. Leuchars is 15 mins on bus or quicker by taxi. 30 mins on a nice, off-road cycle path...
The cycle path doesn't run along the old trackbed, apart from short section in Guardbridge, so assume would be safe from development.
Posted 11 years ago # -
In Crail where I grew up there was one bus in either direction each hour. It was a 55 minute wait at Leuchars off most trains. It set off from Leven but didn't connect with the arriving Kirkcaldy bus. In fact you could see it leaving as you arrived. This is the kind of moronic stuff that should be fixed before they put in rail-lines.
Posted 11 years ago # -
@Tom yes Stagecoach do a good service between St Andrews and Dundee (there were about 4 different routes you could take, one every 10 or 15 minutes) I guess for students and commuters. When I first went to uni, the Leuchars - St Andrews bus service did stupid things like leave 3 minutes before the Edinbugh train arrived so you had to wait 30 mins in the cold and dark for next bus, which was the slow one going via Balmullo and Strathkiness, but it did rapidly improve. However even "in my day" (early-mid '00s) the service beyond St Andrews was pretty poor and timetabling was both confusing and frustrating. Even services to Edinburgh often involved a change at either Glenrothes or Kirkcaldy.
My favourite example of daft transport timetabling in Scotland was trying to get back from Canna (one of the small Isles beyond Skye) to Edinburgh in under a day. The only day where it was theoretically achievable was on a Saturday, where the ferry would get you in to Mallaig at (say) 430PM. Of course, last train of the day had left about 4PM, but there was a local minibus service you could take to get to Fort William. Unfortunately it arrived in Fort William 10 minutes after the last Citylink bus to Glasgow had departed. Now, you could have taken the train direct to Edinburgh except it had also left about an hour ago. No problem, get on the Sleeper train and use the seating carriage. No, that's not allowed, there's no through tickets between Fort William and Edinburgh.
So the only solution was to talk nicely to the minibus driver and ask him to put his foot down. He would try and get you to FW on time, except at the time the road to Mallaig was still largely single, so hold ups could mean you didn't make it. Citylink wouldn't wait as driver wanted to get home to Glasgow.
Even if you did make the Citylink bus, you then had to go to Glasgow where you arrived about 1130PM and wait for a night bus to Edinburgh which left about 0030AM! And then you get to Edinburgh and there were no night buses so it was a walk home with all your kit from the bus station to Bruntsfield.
Posted 11 years ago # -
In a list of Biggish-Scottish-Towns-Without-A-Railway-Station St Andrews is probably reasonably high up the list.
But what is the biggest town without a railway station?
By my reckonging it's Grangemouth (although it has a railway) or Glenrothes (although it just about has a station).
Of course Grangemouth is probably closer to Polmont than many parts of Edinburgh or Glasgow are to a station.Boness is probably another contender, although once again it does technically have a station.
Other 'big' places nearish Glasgow/Edinburgh with no railway:
Whitburn
Denny
Kilmacolm
KilsythOther 'big' towns with no railway:
Hawick
Forfar
Peterhead
Fraserburgh
BuckieHawick and Fraserburgh are probably the most 'remote'.
I think all of these places have had a railway in the past.
Posted 11 years ago # -
Fraserburgh certainly did, as did Peterhead (which both joined up near Mintlaw and went through Ellon (a big-ish town in its own right now, a village when we first moved there) to head into Aberdeen.
Congestion on the road to Aberdeen from Ellon in the mornings is horrendous, which leads to calls for a 'missing link' of about 3 miles of road to be converted to dual carriageway (completely missing the point that once on the outskirts of Aberdeen, after 6-7 miles of dualling, the traffic backs up once more really really badly). Reinstating the trainline would be much much more beneficial, but people love their cars even more in Aberdeenshire.
When I was growing up they took down loads of the bridges that the railway crossed roads at. Allegedly to allow double decker buses to use the roads, but rumours at the time that the calls for railway reinstatement were growing and those 'in charge' wanted to remove the ability to do so easily of cost-effectively.
Posted 11 years ago # -
The Ellon bit is now the "Formatine and Buchan Way". I always think that looks quite nice for a cycle trip (depending on the surface).
But it sounds like there will be lots of awkward descent/ascents at the road crossings if the bridges are all gone!
Posted 11 years ago # -
Road surface is ocasionally good - more often big chunky gravel. Though last time I rode it was a couple of years ago. There is quite a lot of ramp down, awkward gate, ramp up etc etc etc.
Posted 11 years ago # -
One of the better sections!
On the Formartine & Buchan Way by blackpuddinonnabike, on FlickrOh, there's also a farmer who takes umbrage at the line going through his land, so lets his cows wander over it, putting gates on either side that make it more difficult to get by.
Posted 11 years ago # -
Buckie definitely used to have a railway. The track is still partially there though bridges have been taken down, housing developments built up and so on.
Posted 11 years ago # -
Glenrothes has two stations: Thornton on the Fife loop, and Markinch on the east coast main line. Neither of them terribly handy for the town centre, but easily reached by bicycle. Leuchars to St Andrews is a bit further, but not much and it is mostly flat as a pancake. Student town, bicycles, not exactly difficult to figure out the solution is actually a much enhanced off-road cycle route, to Dutch standards. Increased bike parking at the station and in town. Tiny fraction of the cost of a rail link.
Posted 11 years ago # -
Or perhaps a Boris bike style hire scheme to be all but free between the station and town?
add in a few cargo bike for all the suit cases etc and an awful lot more people could become aware of just how versatile and easy cycling is!Posted 11 years ago # -
Or do both: Dutch style segregated cycle path AND bike hire scheme. Yes, I can see the headlines now: "St Andrews beats Cambridge and Gröningen as Europe's most cycle-friendly university town".
Then I woke up to the sound of 4x4s being parked by irate middle-aged St Andrews residents at Leuchars station...
Posted 11 years ago # -
I can't find the study online - but anyone who thinks a new branch line to St Andrews could cover its operating costs is misguided. As I understand it, only the Edinburgh-Falkirk High-Glasgow QS line comes close to covering its operating costs.
Anyway, it won't happen - the Scottish Government don't happen to have £71m just lying about at the moment.
Posted 11 years ago # -
"Anyway, it won't happen - the Scottish Government don't happen to have £71m just lying about at the moment."
Probably not.
Jane Ann Liston was on radio talking about 'private' funding because of increased (development) land values.
George Hazel and co. tried that for the South Sub - more credible (in Edinburgh), but still didn't work.
Posted 11 years ago # -
the Scottish Government don't happen to have £71m just lying about at the moment.
Well, not unless it's for motorways and trunk roads, of course.
Posted 11 years ago # -
Student town, bicycles, not exactly difficult to figure out the solution is actually a much enhanced off-road cycle route, to Dutch standards. Increased bike parking at the station and in town.
A couple of observations here - for a flat, compact, student town, St Andrews has relatively low bicycle usage. My experience is that the place is so compact that most people just walk - you can be from any of the centre of town halls to any of the centre of town lectures in 10 minutes, 15 at most. The sea air also means bicycles rust incredibly quickly.
When I was there a month or so back, we spotted some yellow, single speed BSO-type things stickered up with University stickers, so I think they may have set up a hire / loan scheme.
More racks around than when I were there, but it's still not a Cambridge sort of mass use. They've also improved some of the routes around centre of town - salmon run lanes etc. but the narrow, congested streets and the one way system still mean it's often quicker and less hassle to walk (particularly when you know the warren of lanes and passages throughout the centre of town)
As for getting out of town (rather than around it) car ownersip is fairly high amongst the home-grown student populace - generally students are from more affluent backgrounds and a lot of the Scottish students preferred to drive home for weekends (or to Edinburgh / Glasgow for party weekends) rather than slum it on public transport. Very few of the Glaswegian students took the train as it involved at least 1 if not 2 changes, they took the bus instead.
Apart from the end section in St Andrews itself, and a short section in Guardbridge, the cycle route is what you would call "Dutch". It's a separated, tarmacced lane, fairly wide, fenced and hedged off from the road. It is relatively free of obstructions and the sections where it uses shared pavement or quiet roads are fine too. All it would take would be some minor tinkering through Guardbridge and at the St Andrews end to make it really great.
Posted 11 years ago # -
https://www.transport.gov.scot/news/local-rail-development-fund-set-to-award-grants-of-681k/
Maybe a wee bit closer still. Anyone know what the "Cross Forth Travel" plan is?
Posted 5 years ago # -
Hovercrafts?
Posted 5 years ago #
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