“Campaign for Borders Rail AGM – Resumé of Ewan Tait’s presentation
Peter Heubeck, Campaign for Borders Rail’s Technical Adviser, has summarised the presentation given by the guest speakers at our AGM on 25 October.
Ewan Tait, Business Development Executive, leads ScotRail’s business development team. Having trained and worked as a professional transport planner, he first joined ScotRail’s timetable planning team before moving to business development.
Ewan’s presentation contained a lot of data and these notes only highlight key points:
• Frequency of train usage -in spite of the limited number of stations, surveys confirm that Midlothian and Borders residents use the train more frequently than the average for Scotland.
• General trend – ScotRail is showing healthy year on year growth.
• Changing Borders Railway usage – demand grew sharply and then reached a plateau surprisingly quickly after the railway opened in 2015. Travel was badly affected by the Covid pandemic. While volumes have recovered well, commuting is still lower than pre-Covid. The railway routes which have a mix of commuting and leisure traffics are doing better than those which were mostly used by commuters. Travellers commuting less frequently are now willing to live further from their office and commute a longer distance. While the usage of Midlothian stations was initially relatively low, they are now showing stronger growth. The post-Covid growth in travel from all Borders Railway stations is still continuing, which is very encouraging, (some are now exceeding their pre-Covid totals). Unsurprisingly, Edinburgh is still the dominant originating point and destination, but there is increasing travel between Borders Railway stations.
• Cancellations and delays – ScotRail is working hard to improve service reliability. A two-year pay deal has been agreed. Negotiations are being held to make Sundays part of the working week. Additional train crew are being recruited and trained. Additional train maintenance staff are being recruited and detailed technical action plans are underway to improve the reliability of the older types of trains.
• December 2025 timetable – in December there will be a significant increase in the number of long-distance passenger trains operating on the East Coast Main Line, (which is already very busy). The Borders Railway uses this route for the last / first three miles between Portobello Junction and Edinburgh Waverley. While additional congestion may affect train punctuality, ScotRail, Network Rail and other train operators are planning ahead to minimise this.
• Room for growth – the average number of passengers per train on Borders Railway is around 45, although peak services are busy at the northern end of the route. Three-coach trains can seat around 190 passengers, so encouraging more travel away from peak times is a priority.
• Encouraging growth – research by Transport Focus indicates a hierarchy of factors which would encourage passengers to travel by train more frequently. ScotRail have removed peak fares, are working hard to reduce delays and cancellations, have resolved industrial relations problems and are improving local ease of access to stations, all of these factors are rated highly by passengers.
• New trains – in order to reduce the carbon footprint of railway operations, ScotRail will be replacing many of its older trains. Various types of new electric trains will replace diesel trains. The new trains will be more user-friendly for passengers, more reliable and cheaper to operate. However, this will require a lot of investment, leaving less money available for other projects.
• An extended Borders Railway – in response to a question, Ewan said that proper research should determine the train service which is needed and this in turn should determine the infrastructure which should be provided, (and not the other way round). If the line is extended to Hawick, the nature of the service should be carefully considered, since travellers from Borders towns wouldn’t necessarily want an “all stations” stopping service.
For further comment, contact Secretary John Liddle secretary@campaignforbordersrail.org