I KNOW it’s a special occasion because there’s not just one Mr Softy ice-cream van, there’s two. There’s also the Methil and District Pipe Band, the First Minister and his entourage, and hundreds of people hanging over the fences and bridges to get a look. It’s a big day: a new railway station is opening.

The journey to get us here took about an hour more or less, most of it on the line from Edinburgh to Kirkcaldy but the last six miles on part of the old Fife coastal route which was closed in 1969. Fifty-five years later, the stretch from Thornton junction has now been reopened and here we are at the spanking new station at Leven, the end of the line.

Part of me is disappointed by the look of it: the station is rather utilitarian compared to the fine old buildings of the Victorian days. But I get it: we need to keep costs down and on the whole they have. I speak to the project manager, an ebullient, diesel-powered railwayman called Joe Mulvenna, and he knows what’s he doing: he’s worked on every big railway project you could mention including Queen Street station. Final cost for the Fife line: £116m. Not bad.

But there’s another reason I’m a little disappointed: it all ends here at Leven. In the old days, before the Beeching cuts, the line used to go all the way round the coast to St Andrews and was popular with Scottish holidaymakers. Mr Mulvenna also tells me the line up ahead looks good and it would be perfectly possible to extend it further.

So why don’t we? Once we get off the train at Leven, I speak to Mr Swinney and tell him people want more. A few days ago, I was speaking to folk in Hawick who are desperate for the Borders Railway to be extended. I was also at Holyrood recently with a delegation from the town of Winchburgh who are asking for a new station on the Edinburgh/Glasgow line. They know that trains bring passengers, and jobs, and economic regeneration and they want a bit of it for their communities. So why aren’t we doing it?

To be fair to the First Minister, it’s clear he gets the positive effects of the trains, although whether, as he says, the cuts of the 1960s were a “historic wrong” is open to question. People were changing their habits back then and using cars more, and there was a serious over-supply of railway lines in many parts of the country, and some kind of rationalisation or reduction was probably required. Beeching was just the guy who wielded the axe.

But 55 years on, we’re changing our habits again, or trying to, and embracing a shift away from the car and so the point would be to build railways that work for Scotland as it is now. Many parts of the country are still struggling with deindustrialisation and feel disconnected or distant from where the opportunities are: economic, educational, you name it. Trains can help fix that, which is why they’re needed in the Borders, Winchburgh and elsewhere.

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At Leven, Mr Swinney tells me about some of the stuff the SNP has already delivered over the years - Airdrie/Bathgate, new stations at Reston and other places, and Levenmouth of course - and it’s a good list. But I’m less sure about his reasons for not investing further. We’re in the middle of a UK general election campaign, he tells me, austerity has been crippling investment in infrastructure, and the SNP is wrestling with cuts to capital expenditure coming from the UK Government. He also mentions the role of the developers at Winchburgh even though ultimately, it’s governments that get new stations opened, not housebuilders.

And basically, if I learn anything from the train trip with Mr Swinney on a new line on a glorious sunny day, it’s that there may be a disconnect in government between what they say about a lack of resources (whether imposed by the UK Government or not) and what they say about the benefits of railways. Mr Swinney says there isn’t the money for what he’d like to do but he also talks about how railways provide economic and social opportunities, and enable more investment, and more opportunities to access work, education, leisure and recreation and he’s right.

In fact, I saw it for myself when I was down in the Borders the other day speaking to local people, and the MSP Christine Grahame, who told me about the positive effects the railway there has encouraged and expedited in the last few years, not least the big housing developments at Newtongrange and Gorebridge. They’re also seeing businesses thrive in Galashiels (which is on the railway line) and struggle in Hawick (which isn’t).

The Herald:

The point is that investment in railways is investment with a big return. On the train to Leven, I get talking to a local hotelier who tells me he’s convinced the relative deprivation of the area will be relieved by the new line and I’m sure he’s right. At Leven itself, Mr Swinney also tells me he would love to do more and that there are lots of discussions going on.

So how about starting with a serious push in Winchburgh? And a serious look at extending the Borders? The reopening of part of the old Fife route is wonderful, and my trip along a line that hasn’t been running for 55 years, is glorious, a day of max-train-joy, a past reshaped for the future. But it could be a blueprint for more, it really could. Because in the end it’s funny how often, when you’re faced with a problem, that the answer is trains.