Last week we featured one of Scotland’s newest rail stations, Reston in Berwickshire, in an article which attracted a lot of attention from our readers.
Reston opened in May 2022, at a cost of £20 million, but so far it is being used by only 80 passengers a day.
Today a correspondent urges us to look at the bigger picture, arguing that Reston, and rail in general, has a bright future ahead.
Jane Ann Liston of St Andrews writes:
"Now that the full timetable has been restored there will certainly be an increase in usage which I look forward to Mr Leask covering in a year or two's time.
"While we can all think of other places which need to have their rail services restored, some of which are mentioned in the article, it should be remembered that Reston is on an existing railway line, which made its reopening easier than places which require a new line to be built and therefore perhaps more attractive for a government looking for "quick wins".
"The real issue is that railway enhancements tend to be carried out on an ad hoc basis, a station here, a branch line there, whereas what is required is an assessment of the existing network, agreeing what gaps need to be filled so that popular destinations are served by train, and a long-term programme drawn up to systematically enhance Scotland's rail services.
"It is all very well saying that rail may not always be the right solution, implying that all that is required is a bus service, but as motorists are known to be reluctant to switch to a bus that might well not achieve the desired modal shift. Surely the right solution is the one which gets most people out of cars? Judging by earlier re-openings, that would appear to be rail."
📨 Read more in our Letters page
Letters should not exceed 500 words. We reserve the right to edit submissions.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here