Lobby groups in the north and south of Scotland have emphasised how freight can play a new role in railway development. Campaigns in the North East and the Scottish Borders have both put their cases to the government and to stakeholders at large. The North East lobby group was at the Scottish Parliament last week, while the Borders group held its Annual General Meeting in its region’s largest community, Galashiels.
The Campaign for North East Rail seeks to establish a rail link between Aberdeen, Scotland’s third-largest city and the twin towns of Peterhead and Fraserburgh, which are both important locations for a variety of marine and offshore industries, including renewable energy. Their southern counterparts, the Campaign for Borders Rail, which seeks to build on earlier success, have welcomed the start of a multi-modal transport feasibility study, which they would like to see extend a railway through the Borders to the city of Carlisle in northwest England.
Mixed messages from mixed governments
Although running largely independently, the Campaign for Borders Rail recognises a constraint on services. “The Borders Railway runs over three miles of the East Coast Main Line, between Portobello and Edinburgh,” said Marion Short, the chair of CBR. “At times of the day that line is full. We are working with other stakeholders to ensure that Borders services, and potential paths for passenger and freight traffic on a fully reinstated through route, are accommodated and that the feasibility study now underway recognises the need for greater capacity on the east side of Edinburgh.”
Similarly, the Campaign for North East Rail has taken the opportunity of a committee meeting at the Scottish Parliament to forward the case for future-proofing rail capacity north from Aberdeen, which provides paths for a frequent passenger service, and for future freight traffic. The latter commitment was made in the light of mixed messages from the Scottish government and its UK counterpart. On the same day last week, the London government cancelled a carbon-capture generation project in the region, while the Edinburgh government reaffirmed its commitment to a separate energy-generation project. The two projects have obvious synergy, which makes the diverse decisions all the more perplexing.
Freight remains on the campaign trail
Scottish industry has contracted of late, with major de-investments in oil refining and chemical processing. This has resulted in the discontinuation of several industrial rail freight flows. Additionally, a decision was also taken recently not to pursue a trial timber traffic flow. However, Marion Short at the Campaign for Borders Rail said this retrenchment was nothing new, and the campaign in the Borders took cognisance of a disconnect between action on the rails and stated government ambitions to grow the rail freight sector.
Marion Short pointed to the town of Hawick, formerly a significant stop on the route between Edinburgh, Midlothian, the Borders and Carlisle. The former weaving town is now around 25km from a railhead. She emphasised the greater economic impact of the decades-long disconnect from the UK rail network. She told the well-attended AGM that industrial decline and depopulation are significantly attributable to the lack of a mixed traffic rail connection in the town, which saw its passenger and freight services withdrawn in 1969.
While the Campaign for North East Rail and CBR emphasise passenger traffic, freight provision is an important factor for the communities they represent. CBR has already raised the issue of harvested timber traffic from the vast Kielder Forest plantation, all of which currently goes by road. Neither organisation claims there is a reluctance on the part of national governments. However, both groups make clear their shared belief that incorporating rail freight planning is fundamental to development plans for Scotland’s railways.