Rail Freight Group’s David Spaven was on BBC Radio Scotland’s ‘Good Morning Scotland’ show this morning speaking about the need for capacity enhancements on the Highland Main Line. Here’s the link: https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m000249f — from 42 minutes in, for around 4˝ minutes.

Transform Scotland welcomes today’s introduction of the first ‘Inter7City’ high-speed trains. ScotRail announced today that the first of the refurbished trains will enter services on the Aberdeen-Edinburgh route on Monday 15 October. [1] Rail spokesperson Paul Tetlaw said: “We’re delighted to see the first of the fully refurbished ScotRail HST trains about to enter service. […]

Richard Ardern writes in today’s The Herald newspaper: The High Speed Trains which are to be introduced on the inter-city routes north from Glasgow and Edinburgh will give passengers more carriages and a much more comfortable ride. Although capable of 125 mph, the permitted track speeds will limit them to 100mph. As you reported (“Passengers […]

Transform Scotland chair Phil Matthews presented to this evening’s Royal Scottish Geographical Society meeting on rail, alongside ScotRail Alliance managing director Alex Hynes. Phil’s presentation is available for download.

NEWS RELEASEMonday 6 August 2018 Campaigners attack ‘broken promises’ on Highland Main Line rail upgrade The Scottish Government has failed to deliver on a promise made 10 years ago by the then First Minister to slash train journey times from Inverness to Edinburgh and Glasgow, say rail campaigners. To mark the 10th anniversary of the […]

A new report published today has echoed our call to reinstate a direct rail line between Perth and Edinburgh. Greengauge 21, a rail consultancy group, made the recommendation as part of their new report, ‘Beyond HS2‘. The report sets out a number of improvements that are necessary to improve rail connections across the UK. The […]

Transform Scotland has today revealed research highlighting huge disparities in rail journey times north and south of the Central Belt. ‘The North-South Railway Divide’, published as part of the Inter-City Express campaign, compares journey times from the Central Belt to Inverness, Perth, Dundee and Aberdeen, to journeys heading south of the Border. The research found significant […]

The ICE campaign has recently featured in the Royal Scottish Geographical Society’s quarterly magazine, The Geographer. Our Rail Campaigner, Paul Tetlaw, discussed the ‘North-South Railway Divide’ in Scotland, highlighting the extreme gap between rail journey times north and south of the Central Belt. It takes three and half hours to travel 175 miles from Edinburgh to […]

There have been further calls for the reinstatement of a direct rail line between Perth and Edinburgh. Two Councillors at Perth & Kinross Council are due to raise a motion this Wednesday asking officials to write to the Scottish Government asking for a review. Quoted in the Courier, Councillor Calum Purves said: “There are a lot […]

A recent Government report has shown that the Scottish Government’s multi-billion pound spending on new road projects will damage rail services in Scotland. The report, released by Transport Scotland, showed that the Government’s £3 billion spending on dualling the A9 road is likely to reduce the viability of rail freight services to and from the […]