CBR has responded to Network Rail’s draft Long Distance Market Study for consultation (see link below). Key points raised by CBR were:
1. Is NR’s analysis model perhaps overly biased towards flows where reasonable long-distance rail services already exist, unlike the situation in the Central Borders?
2. The study should treat the Scottish Borders as a ‘single economic area analogous to a city-region’ in the same way that the North Wales Coast or Cornwall have been.
3. Subsequent stages of the study should carefully examine the case for reinstatement of the Carlisle–Borders–Edinburgh link as a more cost effective means of addressing Anglo-Scottish capacity problems in the shorter term.