February 14.
It is unclear whether the delegation to Transport Minister, Roger
Freeman, sought or achieved progress on the issue central to the
long-term retention of rail services north of Inverness (February 11).
Probing Freeman's willingness to help with the modicum of capital
investment needed to the vital Dornoch Rail Bridge project is surely the
raison d'etre of any such dialogue or revival of the successful 1960's
McPuff Campaign to retain the Highland lines. The geography of the
Dornoch rail link is also particularly fortunate since its
accomplishment would, by implication, also make absolutely secure the
future of all rail services on the Highland main line north of Perth to
Inverness.
Sir Robert Reid, chairman of
British Rail, has already urged the area's four Highland line MPs to
fight specifically for the threatened Inverness-Thurso/Wick route now
facing close scrutiny in its un-improved state.
Its antiquated and uncompetitive schedules were highlighted at the
October, 1992 rail conference sponsored by Highland Regional Council
where its poor performance contrasted against the quite favourable
growth experienced elsewhere on the Highland network. No other rail
route in the UK now faces such a time/distance handicap against its road
competitors benefiting from such gargantuan improvements to the parallel
A9 road and its road-only Dornoch Bridge route in particular.
Despite repeated posturings about ''maintaining subsidies for socially
necessary lines'' the Government has already served a suspended
death-notice on the Inverness-Thurso/Wick line by its refusal to help
ScotRail with even the crumbs of investment needed to achieve a modern
competitive service via the Dornoch route.
Giving such one-off capital assistance (amounting to just 2% of the A9
reconstruction costs) would
allow ScotRail, or any franchised/privatised successors, to attract
more passengers, carried at about half the subsidy bill now required to
operate the now obsolete nineteenth-century route to Caithness and the
Orkney ferry terminal.
Failure to make progress on this tangible and enduring improvement --
with the permanence implied -- only reveals the insincerity of
ministerial assurances as not worth the paper they aren't written on.
Freeman may of course be much relieved that he wasn't even presented
with any such specifically embarrassing discussion. Scots anger, as
expressed by the delegation, possibly appeared no more lethal than the
firing of blank cartridges -- aimed well clear of the real target.
K. A. Sutherland,
Research Officer,
Railway Development Society Scotland,
53 Cochrane Street,
Glasgow.
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