There's always one!
Friday, 08 October 2010
I have no quarrel with Mr McNaughton’s history lesson
from the 1960s, though he does not seem to appreciate
that British Rail was trying its best to close every
single branch line, no matter how well used, and of
course in Scotland only North Berwick escaped. But
the implication that because passenger numbers were
falling in the 1960s, when the town’s population was
something like 9500 and there were only 2000
students, the pattern would be repeated 50 years
later is simply not borne out. Rail usage is steadily
increasing, despite the massive reductions in the
network in the last century. Indeed, every re-opening
in Britain since 1995 (and even further back in
Scotland) has been used by very many more passengers
than predicted and, despite the oft-repeated ‘St
Andrews is different’ mantra, there is absolutely
nothing to suggest that the Home of Golf would buck
this trend. I fear that Mr McNaughton’s 25-year
residence in Edinburgh has reduced his awareness of
what is actually going on in his native town, despite
his subscription to the Citizen.
Of course we have to wait until we see the results of the feasibility study but the signs are that, far from being uneconomic, a modern rail service would actually boost the economy, which one would have thought to be very necessary over the next few years.
Of course we have to wait until we see the results of the feasibility study but the signs are that, far from being uneconomic, a modern rail service would actually boost the economy, which one would have thought to be very necessary over the next few years.