About CBR

October 1998 Discussions between Borders Transport Futures (BTF) – a company which came very close to securing the rebuilding of the southern end of the railway for timber traffic – and Galashiels resident Petra Biberbach result in the calling of a public meeting as a first step towards establishing a campaign group supportive of BTF's aim of getting the Borders back on the rail network.

January 1999 CBR is formally launched at a Burns Supper in Melrose station restaurant with Petra Biberbach as chairperson.

October 1999 The first of three conferences to be organised by CBR is held at Newtown St. Boswells with the theme "The Case for Borders Rail".

Late 1999 17,000 signatures are collected for a petition to be presented to the Scottish Parliament Public Petitions Committee, in  favour of reopening the Waverley Route throughout.

March 2000 The Public Petitions Committee meets in Galashiels to consider our petition. CBR members give evidence in a packed Volunteer  Hall and a subsequent debate in the Scottish Parliament unanimously endorses the petition's aims.

August 2000 A steam outline locomotive is constructed out of straw bales close to the A7 as a publicity stunt. The subsequent arson attack on it results in even more publicity!

Summer 2001 In cooperation with Stow Community Council, funding is secured for carrying out a survey to establish potential rail use from the village. This eventually leads on to a separate (and successful) campaign for a well-located station in Stow.

July 2002 The official  proposals for an Edinburgh to Tweedbank passenger line are published. CBR participates in the subsequent consultation exercise and flags up many concerns.

Late 2002 The Waverley Route Trust is set up by a number of CBR members as a separate entity to look at ways of securing a more innovative type of railway  than that contained in the official proposals.

March 2003 A conference jointly sponsored by CBR and the Mining Institute of Scotland, and held at the Scottish Mining Museum, Newtongrange, considered the economic and technical possibilities for the use of the railway for transport of coal in the event of future opencast licences being approved in the southern part of the Midlothian coalfield.

March 2005 CBR members give evidence to the Waverley Railway Bill Committee at meetings in Newtongrange and Galashiels.

April 2007 An extensive leafleting campaign is carried out encouraging voters to vote for any party but the anti-rail Borders Party in the upcoming  local elections. The Borders Party achieves only modest success.

January 2009 To mark the 40th anniversary of closure, the 2008 AGM is postponed until January 6th and Transport Minister Stewart Stevenson is secured as guest speaker – he is forced to cancel at the last minute but top officials from Transport Scotland substitute.

December 2009 CBR welcomes Stewart Stevenson’s comment that an extension to Carlisle is a "perfectly reasonable ambition" and Transport Scotland’s visionary Pre-qualification Document issued to companies wishing to design, build, finance and maintain the new Edinburgh-Tweedbank railway. The document flags up many of the issues which CBR had been campaigning for – faster journey times, infrastructure provision for freight and passenger charter trains and a design facilitating extension south from Tweedbank.

February 2010 CBR's new website is launched as part of a push to gather the widest possible support for securing the best possible Borders Railway by 2014.

November 2010 Jackie McGuire, former Lead Officer for the Stirling to Alloa rail re-opening scheme, tells the CBR AGM how successful that project has been – with 400,000 passengers a year using the train, compared to a predicted use of 155,000.