A new Transport Scotland report has said that the plans for a tram-train service to Glasgow Airport could cause delays to some other services with other services also likely to have to be removed to make way for the plans. The report states that there would be a significant impact on the Glasgow to Paisley route.
The tram-train plan was first mooted last year when an initial report said that it would only cost £92 million and would be a replacement for the now cancelled Glasgow Airport Rail Link. However this latest report has thrown doubt into whether Transport Scotland actually consider these plans to be feasible with many potential obstacles considered.
The report says that four tram-trains an hour would run from the Airport into Glasgow Central with a new link built from the Airport terminal to join the Glasgow to Paisley line. This railway line is said to be one of the busiest in Scotland and it is feared that adding four tram-trains an hour would impact this service with a potential reduction required. There is also an issue at Glasgow Central station where there is limited platform capacity and again a suggestion is made that other services could be removed or alternatively the tram-trains could run on the city centre streets. There are also doubts raised over the length of journeys as they would take 20 minutes and 30 seconds – which would only be 90 seconds quicker than airport buses.
Regardless of these doubts it has been confirmed that consideration would not really be taken towards progressing the plans until the results of the, much delayed, tram-train trial in Sheffield are known.
Another example of lack of vision, the cancellation of the rail line and now objections against the possible replacement. What’s new?
Is it very dark when they bury their heads in the sand.
I presume that by the Glasgow to Paisley rail line they mean the line that goes to Paisley Canal and not the station on the Gourock and Ayr routes. If they are talking about the latter then passengers to/from a considerable number of stations would be losing out.