Headcode

As the setting up of Great British Railways gains momentum, we're devoting quite a lot of space in this Far North Express to the issues raised. The Department for Transport (DfT) produced a fairly detailed consultation document in February and we are publishing Transform Scotland's response to this in full.

There is also an article written for The Herald by Jonathan Pugh, who is a rail and policy expert with more than 35 years of experience working across the railway industry. He laments, as we often do, the time it takes for anything rail-related to be decided upon.

With that thought in mind, Richard Ardern has compiled a list of headlines demonstrating for how long the issue of Highland rail services has been ignored. The list will be contained in this issue's companion page on our website.

In 2006 the Highland Rail Room for Growth Study was published. It explained in great detail the improvements needed for all the railways in the Highlands. Its suggestions featured in the 2008 Strategic Transport Projects Review and promises were made. Nineteen years later and very little has been done. We are of course delighted that a substantial sum is being spent on track renewal on the FNL in June; this is most welcome, but is maintenance, not new infrastructure. The problems identified remain. It seems there is no political will in Scotland to tackle these problems and the railway services remain in a time warp as the rolling stock gradually deteriorates, with no sign of replacement for the Class 158 (and 156 on the West Highland) units.

For a time there was hope, as the momentum from the declaration of a Climate Emergency put modal shift to rail, and "decarbonisation" of the fleet, in the spotlight. Ambitious targets were declared.

As we enter the last year of the present government its members have little incentive to embark on big projects which they have no chance of seeing through to completion, and the targets have been relaxed and/or abandoned. External factors have caused the money supply to diminish and the Scottish Government does not have the borrowing powers available to independent countries for capital projects.

However, in this context it's impossible not to mention the A9 dualling. One wonders how on earth money, and a "business case", can be found for an unjustifiably lavish road project, but not for tackling the Highlands Railway Deficit.

Instead of being afraid of campaigners, including some of their own members, and influenced by dubious statistics, the Scottish Government should just have fixed the dangerous junctions on the A9 years ago. This would have saved lives already and been far cheaper than dualling. Money might then have been available to fulfil promises made for rail.