Yesterday’s Guardian carried a big news piece on the Borders Railway – their web version (with different photos) is at http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2012/nov/05/scottish-borders-rail-route-beeching-reopening?INTCMP=SRCH
The paper’s Scotland correspondent Severin Carrell is also running a news blog on the Borders Railway: http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/scotland-blog/2012/nov/06/scotland-rail-borders-line?INTCMP=SRCH
Ian Bell says:
I read the piece in the Guardian with interest and a feeling of pleasure at some informative and supportive writing – unlike that over priced and over rated chip paper from Edinburgh. Thank you.
campaign for borders rail says:
A fine turn of phrase Ian!
We need to keep pressing Alastair Dalton at The Scotsman to acknowledge the sheer scale of what has been achieved, and to recognise that virtually all big infrastructure schemes end up costing far more than their original budgets. In other words, there is nothing very unusual about the Borders Railway cost escalation.
His use of English also needs improving – the tired repetition of the phrase “ill-fated” to describe the Borders Railway is weird. How can that possibly describe a ‘fate’ which involves a 31-mile railway opening for business in 2015 – the longest line to be built in Scotland since 1901!
The scales will eventually be lifted from his eyes…
Daibhi O Cathain says:
Indeed, Ian: the ‘chip paper’ with its consistently negative approach to our railway has been an on-going disgrace. Daibhi O Cathain.
Nick Bethune says:
The Guardian piece was well written and seemed pretty accurate as these things go – I suspect the journalist was well briefed by David and Bill! Only one minor grumble – the map, which was included in the print version, showed the route of the line south of Tweedbank as going via Selkirk and then down the line of the A7 road!! I suspect that their source for this was the Wikipedia page for the ‘Waverley Line’, which carries a similarly erroneous map. Does anyone know how to go about correcting this?
campaign for borders rail says:
That mistake was annoying – and the Guardian journalist didn’t get a chance to see the map before the paper was printed. Wikipedia experts required!