BORDERS RAILWAY @ FIVE - PART 2 - TV DOCUMENTARY

[@daystatesniper01]

Let's be honest ,this line should never have been closed like many others were , and the haste in which it was ripped up and infastructure demolished was amazing ,of course it should be re-opened to Carlisle .If only central goverment looked outside the M 25 ,crossrail bilions over budget and now cross 2 !!! .If the total reopening,doubling and wiring were to cost say 2 billion it is money well spent .

[@JohnnyTheWolfLupino]

Considering HS2 is going to blow its £40 billion budget, £1 billion to get to Carlisle is a relative bargain.

[@rossturnbull8047]

excellent! Got the 'goose bumps' again!!!!

[@ChangesOneTim]

Discontinuous (partial) 25kV electrification MIGHT be the answer if the budget really cannot stretch to do the whole thing. As everyone knows, the whole line was built with passive provision for OLE, so traditionally high civils costs for bridge etc rebuilds won't arise. Even if full vs partial electrification were to trigger a significant extra, such as one more National Grid feeder station, that surely would be at less cost than re-tractioning dozens of EMUs for dual battery/ AC? I believe it would have to be dozens, as it's usually a false economy across a train fleet to rely on only a small captive pool/ sub-fleet that are capable of being diagrammed for the Borders line. Hawick does seem the next logical goal for extension. It would be great to see Hawick reached in the foreseeable, if not full reopening to Carlisle, but I guess (a) the further from Edinburgh you go the weaker the business case becomes, and (b) all depends on what if any 'draw' there is of direct rail access with NW England.

[@akrills]

I have really enjoyed watching this second video. Thank you and the very best of luck that the overall project is completed.

[@MrAuriga67]

I agree with the commenter, that the line should of been built thru to Hawick. Lets hope the funding is found, and the southern section is built, and lets include timber traffic from Kielder and other places.

[@charlieboy418]

Terrific project, great fan of railways for the future. Pleased to hear that you plan on running steam and diesel locomotives on the line from time to time thus chuffing out a bit of carbon to keep the trees and other plant life green.

[@nickcollins7568]

If they had built the borders railway properly it would have been twin track not single

[@simonpitt8145]

I think they had to compromise in order to just get it done. Otherwise the project would have simply cost too much and there would have been no railway at all. The original idea was to have longer sections of double track, but this was pushing the cost up and up and up and so there was no choice but to cut back on these double track areas. Even so, it does seem bizarre that the new overbridges weren't built with passive provision to enable track doubling later on if necessary. I agree that this was inexcusable as it surely wouldn't have cost much more to construct a span over two track widths rather than one.