New Railways Deliver

• Stirling-Alloa (re-opened in 2008): Around 400,000 passengers per annum now use this new service, compared to the theoretical forecast of just 155,000 passengers p.a. before the line was built.
• Laurencekirk station (reopened in 2009): In its first year of operation the new station was used by 60,000 passengers compared to the originally forecast 36,000.
• Cardiff-Ebbw Vale (reopened in 2008): 18 months after re-opening this line was carrying 1 million passengers against an original estimate of 400,000 by 2012.
• Larkhall-Hamilton (reopened 2005): By 2008 trains were carrying around 40% more passengers than previously predicted.
• Beauly station (reopened in 2002): this small wayside station – with similarities to Stow – is now generating over 60,000 trips annually, some four times the original estimate.
• Edinburgh-Bathgate (re-opened 1986): Trains are now carrying four times as many passengers as the original traffic projections. The huge success of this initiative has helped to secure reconstruction of the 14-mile 'missing link' between Airdrie and Bathgate, re-opened in 2010, and electrification of the whole rail corridor.

The Edinburgh-Stow-Gala-Tweedbank railway will transform travel between the Central Borders and the capital, attracting people out of their cars – and sowing the seeds for extension of the line on towards Hawick and Carlisle.

With thanks to Ken Sutherland at Railfuture Scotland