Campaigners ‘aghast’ that £20m new Reston station in Borders may be served by just eight trains a day

[och aye]

The locals don't sound too happy!

Campaigners ‘aghast’ that £20m new Reston station in Borders may be served by just eight trains a day

Scotland’s newest station, being built at a cost of £20 million, is likely to be served by only a handful of services a day when it opens next year.

www.scotsman.com

Reston, on the east coast main line near Eyemouth in the Borders, is due to be completed next March following a 22-year campaign for its re-opening.

However, instead of a planned ScotRail commuter service to Edinburgh, the station is expected to be served by just four trains a day in each direction from cross-Border operators.

Two-hourly ScotRail trains between Edinburgh and Berwick, which would have called at Reston, were written into Abellio’s franchise in 2014.

The then transport minister Keith Brown described this as a “huge step forward towards the realisation of these services and shows a real commitment from the Scottish Government and ScotRail”.

However, they were later scrapped because of delays to the station which was originally due to have been finished in 2016, replacing one closed 57 years ago.

Now, a draft east coast main line timetable for May 2022 reveals it will include just one LNER and three CrossCountry services a day calling at Reston in each direction.

It stated the CrossCountry stops would be provided by switching them from Dunbar, while a fifth daily service would be provided at Reston if possible, in one or both directions.

The document added that there were also discussions about TransPennine Express operating a service between Newcastle or Berwick and Edinburgh that would stop at Reston, replacing the proposed CrossCountry services.

Campaign group Rail Action Group East of Scotland (Rages), which has been lobbying for the re-opening of Reston since it was founded in 1999, said the plans were ridiculous.

President Tom Thorburn said: “We are aghast at the proposed timetable for Reston and the robbery of trains from Dunbar.”

Berwickshire Conservative MSP Rachael Hamilton said she was “astounded”.

She said: “Reston station isn’t yet finished and it seems its future is already in jeopardy.

“The Scottish Government spent years making a decision to back its reinstatement.

“To now be told the station could be just one big beautiful white elephant is insulting.”

A spokesperson for ScotRail, whose trains currently run only as far south as Dunbar, said: “It isn’t the plan for ScotRail to serve Reston.

"It is much more efficient for cross-Border operators to serve it and we do not want to impose unnecessary burdens on the Scottish taxpayer.

"The plan is for ScotRail to fill gaps at Dunbar if cross-Border operators cannot call at both Dunbar and Reston.”

The Scottish Government’s Transport Scotland agency, which oversees the ScotRail franchise, confirmed that it was expected that Reston would be served only by cross-Border operators when it opened.

Its spokesperson said: “The timetable for Reston is still under discussion and we will confirm the details once it is finalised.

"We continue to focus on providing the best possible provision while bearing in mind the impact on the wider network or any changes in stopping patterns.”

TransPennine Express regional development manager Graham Meiklejohn said: “The consultation into the timetable will support decisions to be taken by the [UK] Department for Transport and Transport Scotland regarding calls at Reston and Dunbar.

"TransPennine Express has confirmed its interest in providing those calls as part of an Edinburgh-Newcastle service.”

 

[tbtc]

we do not want to impose unnecessary burdens on the Scottish taxpayer

...yeah, I don't think that "unnecessary burdens on the Scottish taxpayer" were much of a concern when people were writing the cheques for this twenty million pound station in the middle of nowhere

Of course it was always going to be very hard to serve a small village on the fast main line from London to Edinburgh that has no local services on that section - I don't know what these campaigners were realistically expecting... we may now have the nonsense of having to create a new service just to justify the money we've spent on this station

(yes, I'm annoyed, but part of the reason for being annoyed is that it only takes one white elephant project for the Government/ media/ etc to become reluctant to invest in other projects - so we could see deserving stations rejected because the money wasted here will be a stick to beat the railway with)

 

[Baxenden Bank]

Railfuture produced a document 'Top 50 Proposed Stations in Scotland'. Reston was 49th on the list with an estimated minimum annual usage of 20,000.

Before anyone asks, East Linton was 47th with annual usage of 33,000.

 

[Journeyman]

It's particularly frustrating here in Winchburgh, where we've been promised a station for ages, which would be well used from the start.

 

[tommy2215]

I'm all for building new stations, but why would you build a station you have no idea how to serve?

 

[Watershed]

I'm all for building new stations, but why would you build a station you have no idea how to serve?

This is one of the fundamental issues of the current disjointed system. The building of infrastructure is separate from the operation of services, so you end up with infrastructure (stations, chords etc.) that is underused because it cannot sensibly be served.

Case in point - Reston station, as well as things like the Ordsall Chord.

 

[Highlandspring]

Similarly, Edinburgh Gateway was built with excessively long platforms on the promise of all the LNER Aberdeen services stopping which has never materialised.

 

[Scotrail314209]

As seen in the proposal, isn't the case with Reston being that XC are shifting all their Dunbar calls to Reston.

 

[yorkie]

I'm all for building new stations, but why would you build a station you have no idea how to serve?

Forum members have no shortage of ideas

Here are a few threads:

• https://www.railforums.co.uk/threads/how-could-new-ecml-stations-such-as-reston-be-served-should-the-reston-project-be-abandoned-should-other-stations-be-built.212524/

• Reston - should this mean a proper service on the Chathill Flyer?

  From: https://www.railforums.co.uk/threads/new-reston-station-progress-updates.212306/page-2 I note that a ScotRail stopping service to Berwick would be getting very close to Chathill. It would strike me that this means it would be a sensible thing, if it can be pathed, to operate an EMU local...

  www.railforums.co.uk
• https://www.railforums.co.uk/threads/how-should-the-new-reston-station-be-served.215945/

 

[Ianno87]

Similarly, Edinburgh Gateway was built with excessively long platforms on the promise of all the LNER Aberdeen services stopping which has never materialised.

Although there are plenty of Scontrails services to make up the numbers.

 

[edwin_m]

This is one of the fundamental issues of the current disjointed system. The building of infrastructure is separate from the operation of services, so you end up with infrastructure (stations, chords etc.) that is underused because it cannot sensibly be served.

Case in point - Reston station, as well as things like the Ordsall Chord.

It's not the same situation as Ordsall Chord, which was always planned to be part of the wider scheme including the Piccadilly and Oxford Road capacity enhancements. The Chord was approved with the expectation that the rest would follow, but it disappeared into a black hole on Grayling's desk. So that one is down to government decision (or the lack of it), rather than something the industry can do anything about.

Reston is a bit different. As far as I can see there's never been a workable plan that allows it to be served by more than a handful of trains.

 

[LSWR Cavalier]

It is a start, much less bad than spending the money on more roads. The offer 'creates' the demand.

Perhaps the obsession with fast long-distance services, which restrict local services, has got a bit out of hand.

 

[mmh]

It is a start, much less bad than spending the money on more roads. The offer 'creates' the demand.

Perhaps the obsession with fast long-distance services, which restrict local services, has got a bit out of hand.

That's an interesting point, and I think sometimes there is too great a focus on end-to-end journey times over a route, for example in the way if, say, a four-track railway has a two-track section there's an automatic assumption that it must be the local service which is looped/passed and therefore slowed and not the longer service. It's actually quite realistic to imagine the local journeys are more time-sensitive and there's a greater impact by slowing them rather than the long-distance service.

 

[A0]

It is a start, much less bad than spending the money on more roads. The offer 'creates' the demand.

Perhaps the obsession with fast long-distance services, which restrict local services, has got a bit out of hand.

That's a particularly dogmatic attitude. Reston itself has a population of 450 - even if you add in places like Eyemouth (popn 3500), you've got at best a population of between 10k - 15k that Reston would serve - and that's only any good if those people are wanting to travel to Edinburgh or Berwick / Newcastle. If you're heading for Kelso or Lauder then frankly the railway's completely useless.

Saying 'open stations and don't spend on roads' is the ultimate elitism, given that fewer than 10% of journeys are made by rail - and road improvements also benefit local bus services, longer coach services and cyclists.

As for your second point, if you want people to use the trains, they need to go where people want, when people want to travel at a price they are happy with and with a competitive journey time - and since a stop on higher speed long distance service has an impact of circa 5 mins - in terms of slowing down, stopping and then speeding back up along with the associated knock on effects on other services - it doesn't take long for these to start having a major impact.

And to address the point made by @Watershed that this is "is one of the fundamental issues of the current disjointed system" - the station is being paid for by the Scottish government, the Scotrail franchise is accountable to the Scottish government and as of March next year will be operated by them - I'd say this is just another example of SNP largesse, splashing money on things which probably don't have a benefits case and without all stakeholders being fully bought in. I think you need to direct your ire towards Holyrood on this one.

 

[lachlan]

That's a particularly dogmatic attitude. Reston itself has a population of 450 - even if you add in places like Eyemouth (popn 3500), you've got at best a population of between 10k - 15k that Reston would serve - and that's only any good if those people are wanting to travel to Edinburgh or Berwick / Newcastle. If you're heading for Kelso or Lauder then frankly the railway's completely useless.

Saying 'open stations and don't spend on roads' is the ultimate elitism, given that fewer than 10% of journeys are made by rail - and road improvements also benefit local bus services, longer coach services and cyclists.

As for your second point, if you want people to use the trains, they need to go where people want, when people want to travel at a price they are happy with and with a competitive journey time - and since a stop on higher speed long distance service has an impact of circa 5 mins - in terms of slowing down, stopping and then speeding back up along with the associated knock on effects on other services - it doesn't take long for these to start having a major impact.

In my experience folks using coaches arent choosing to do so, they're using them because they're cheaper than trains. That to me suggests the railway network is too expensive. Road improvements encourage more people to drive, which does not help cyclists. Cyclists need dedicated infrastructure, not generic road improvements. As for that percentage figure, we have to do everything we can to increase the proportion of journeys going by rail to meet climate targets. We should not be expanding the road network in a climate emergancy.

 

[A0]

Railfuture produced a document 'Top 50 Proposed Stations in Scotland'. Reston was 49th on the list with an estimated minimum annual usage of 20,000.

Before anyone asks, East Linton was 47th with annual usage of 33,000.

I think they had a typo in that, which I've just corrected - "Reston was 49th on the list with an estimated maximum annual usage of 20,000."

In my experience folks using coaches arent choosing to do so, they're using them because they're cheaper than trains. That to me suggests the railway network is too expensive. Road improvements encourage more people to drive, which does not help cyclists. Cyclists need dedicated infrastructure, not generic road improvements. As for that percentage figure, we have to do everything we can to increase the proportion of journeys going by rail to meet climate targets. We should not be expanding the road network in a climate emergancy.

In many parts, particularly Scotland, people use the coaches because they actually go where people want to. The Victorians used to build railways and took something of a liberty when claiming a station served a particular town or village as often said town or village was a few miles away - the coach never had that problem.

As for your comment "That to me suggests the railway network is too expensive." - tell you what, we'll go back to Victorian standards of Health and Safety, Victorian working conditions and Victorian standards of engineering - that'll bring the cost down to what you think is reasonable. Building railways has *never* been cheap - the Great Central's London extension cost £ 11.5m in the late 1800s, over £ 1,500m in today's prices. And that was with relatively lower standards, far less stringent planning laws, few environmental laws - and that was all funded by a private company that *had* to make a profit on it or it would threaten the company's viability.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Similarly, Edinburgh Gateway was built with excessively long platforms on the promise of all the LNER Aberdeen services stopping which has never materialised.

I believe this is called "futureproofing" and seems a very good idea to me. Also helpful in the event of serious disruption meaning a train that wouldn't normally stop there has to for evacuation purposes.

As for Reston, it's rather in the middle of nowhere (and smaller than a couple of places on the Chathill Flyer) so I'm not quite sure what it's for? I doubt people will use it as a Parkway if it has inferior services than other nearby-ish places. Unless it's a very rural line in the middle of nowhere that has only a few trains per day generally, I question the purpose of building a station that isn't going to be served at least hourly.

 

[Meerkat]

Would I be be biased against the SNP to say that this whiffs a bit of cynical politics? They built the station hoping the UKG would be almost forced to subsidise trains to stop there, and if they didn’t then give more reason to blame UKG for being anti-Scottish?

 

[A0]

Would I be be biased against the SNP to say that this whiffs a bit of cynical politics? They built the station hoping the UKG would be almost forced to subsidise trains to stop there, and if they didn’t then give more reason to blame UKG for being anti-Scottish?

No - it's exactly that.

They've paid for the station, they have a TOC who could serve it and is directly accountable to them. And yet you get this response from Scotrail:

"A spokesperson for ScotRail, whose trains currently run only as far south as Dunbar, said: “It isn’t the plan for ScotRail to serve Reston.

"It is much more efficient for cross-Border operators to serve it and we do not want to impose unnecessary burdens on the Scottish taxpayer."

Basically the SNP are playing politics and hopefully this along with a few other things will blow up in its face fairly soon.

 

[LSWR Cavalier]

'Aghast', I must use that word more.

Could it be that such stations outwith urban areas are much easier to build than stations in urban areas? The latter might be used much more, but finding space for them is more difficult and costly.

 

[Ianno87]

I believe this is called "futureproofing" and seems a very good idea to me. Also helpful in the event of serious disruption meaning a train that wouldn't normally stop there has to for evacuation purposes.

The marginal cost of building longer platforms there and then whilst you're building everything else is probably very little.

 

[Bertie the bus]

...yeah, I don't think that "unnecessary burdens on the Scottish taxpayer" were much of a concern when people were writing the cheques for this twenty million pound station in the middle of nowhere

I don't think you can realistically blame the locals or campaigners for the £20 million price tag of a simple 2 platform station. The blame firmly lies elsewhere.

 

[edwin_m]

The marginal cost of building longer platforms there and then whilst you're building everything else is probably very little.

Always assuming it doesn't trigger changes to a structure or the signalling.

 

[tbtc]

This is one of the fundamental issues of the current disjointed system. The building of infrastructure is separate from the operation of services, so you end up with infrastructure (stations, chords etc.) that is underused because it cannot sensibly be served.

Case in point - Reston station, as well as things like the Ordsall Chord.

I'd suggest East Midlands Parkway for your list

The station was built whilst the four/five coach Meridians that provided the bulk of services there had no spare capacity for Parkway passengers.

If it had been built at the same time as the 810s were being ordered (and a timetable recast happens), there might have been scope for providing four fast trains per hour to Leicester/ London and two fast trains per hour to Nottingham/ Derby/ Sheffield, so enough to attract motorists from the M1

Instead, it only got an hourly (fast) service to Nottingham/ Derby/ Sheffield and an awkward 15/45 minute frequency for fast trains to Leicester/ London, which is a lot less attractive, which means low passenger numbers, which means less incentive for EMR to improve services there

It is a start, much less bad than spending the money on more roads. The offer 'creates' the demand

The "If You Build It, They Will Come" approach might sound nice, but it's costing twenty million quid to build a station in a small village - how much demand would it need to "create" for people to judge it a success?

In my experience folks using coaches arent choosing to do so, they're using them because they're cheaper than trains. That to me suggests the railway network is too expensive. Road improvements encourage more people to drive, which does not help cyclists. Cyclists need dedicated infrastructure, not generic road improvements. As for that percentage figure, we have to do everything we can to increase the proportion of journeys going by rail to meet climate targets. We should not be expanding the road network in a climate emergancy.

Twenty million pounds on a station at Reston suggests to me that the railway network is too expensive

You could build a lot of cycle paths for twenty million pounds

(and that twenty million pound figure is only the cost of building the station - the subsidies required to keep it open, to slow down some long distance services to stop there, to introduce additional services to try to make the station viable... that's going to be a lot of ongoing subsidy each year)

Would I be be biased against the SNP to say that this whiffs a bit of cynical politics? They built the station hoping the UKG would be almost forced to subsidise trains to stop there, and if they didn’t then give more reason to blame UKG for being anti-Scottish?

You could well be right - let's make it someone else's problem - "can't Westminster fix the mess that we created?"

I don't think you can realistically blame the locals or campaigners for the £20 million price tag of a simple 2 platform station. The blame firmly lies elsewhere.

I blame the people who wrote the cheques

Local campaigners can come up with their unrealistic wishlists - the blame goes to the people who've enabled this

It's particularly frustrating here in Winchburgh, where we've been promised a station for ages, which would be well used from the start.

Winchburgh looks a much better bet - good bus service into Edinburgh (which indicates a big enough market), growing population - but we've just spent twenty million pounds on Reston instead, and the small number of expected passengers at Reston will make it a lot harder to get politicians to write cheques for future stations

 

[Wilts Wanderer]

Perhaps someone needs to work out how many passengers need to use the station each day to make it financially worthwhile for the £20 million outlay, subtract the annual usage of the 450 local residents then grant planning permission to developers to build sufficient affordable housing in Reston to make up the shortfall.

 

[Meerkat]

Perhaps someone needs to work out how many passengers need to use the station each day to make it financially worthwhile for the £20 million outlay, subtract the annual usage of the 450 local residents then grant planning permission to developers to build sufficient affordable housing in Reston to make up the shortfall.

No no no…..locals always demand services, but wont accept development that justified them!
Always thought we should take your approach to station closures - you can only keep the station if you allow the demand to be built for it.

 

[Bald Rick]

Politics over socio-economics. I know nobody, and I mean nobody, in the rail industry who thinks Reston is a good idea. There are some people who are absolutely livid about it (and rightly so).

In my experience folks using coaches arent choosing to do so, they're using them because they're cheaper than trains.

Is that not choice, ie choosing the cheaper option?

 

[BrianW]

Perhaps someone needs to work out how many passengers need to use the station each day to make it financially worthwhile for the £20 million outlay, subtract the annual usage of the 450 local residents then grant planning permission to developers to build sufficient affordable housing in Reston to make up the shortfall.

Please ignore- answered below by Baxenden Bank in the meantime- tho I'm surprised the resultant number is so low!
The point still stands tho'- customers needed.
Same as people wanting to keep the pub/ bus/local shop they never use.

 

[Baxenden Bank]

Perhaps someone needs to work out how many passengers need to use the station each day to make it financially worthwhile for the £20 million outlay, subtract the annual usage of the 450 local residents then grant planning permission to developers to build sufficient affordable housing in Reston to make up the shortfall.

In simple terms:
£20,000,000 cost
20,000 annual usage (as per Railfuture estimate)
= £1,000 per use

BUT the asset has a life of, say, 50 years before major maintenance
= £20 per use

£40 per return passenger journey to cover the capital outlay.

Then there are financing costs, ongoing maintenance costs, costs of calling at the station (brakes, fuel etc).

Also the mantra is that faster journeys have a positive effect/value. The reverse therefore must be equally valid and the slower journeys faced by existing passengers on long distance services will have a negative effect/value.

Alternatively:
50 commuters, making 200 trips per year each, gives 20,000 annual usage (10,000 departs, 10,000 alights)
So 10% of the village population need to become commuters (in reality they would be drawn from a wider area than the village itself) or 50 new houses need to be built.

 

[Wilts Wanderer]

In simple terms:
£20,000,000 cost
20,000 annual usage (as per Railfuture estimate)
= £1,000 per use

BUT the asset has a life of, say, 50 years before major maintenance
= £20 per use

£40 per return passenger journey to cover the capital outlay.

Then there are financing costs, ongoing maintenance costs, costs of calling at the station (brakes, fuel etc).

Also the mantra is that faster journeys have a positive effect/value. The reverse therefore must be equally valid and the slower journeys faced by existing passengers on long distance services will have a negative effect/value.

Alternatively:
50 commuters, making 200 trips per year each, gives 20,000 annual usage (10,000 departs, 10,000 alights)
So 10% of the village population need to become commuters (in reality they would be drawn from a wider area than the village itself) or 50 new houses need to be built.

The problem with commuters is that they tend to buy season tickets, which I doubt remotely represent £40/day as this would be equivalent to a tank of fuel for a car, so only competitive against a few hundred miles of driving? What would a likely season ticket between Reston and Edinburgh cost (assuming Edinburgh is the target market.)

Edit: just for comparison, a one-year season ticket between Berwick-on-Tweed and Edinburgh is currently priced at £4192 equivalent to about £16/day, if using it 5 days per week. So I reckon you need to calculate passenger numbers based on roughly £10-15 / day total, allowing for the fact that not all will make the Edinburgh trip - some will commute locally to Berwick, others to Dunbar etc. Probably need at least 250 new houses to make it viable.