Quite apart from concerns about the costing & planning for #RishiSunak's #NetworkNorth rail proposals (intended to replace aspects of #HS2), for those of us living in #Lancaster & the surrounding areas, once again the large urban area of Lancaster-Morecambe is right in the middle of a blank area....
There's a strange blindness about Lancaster; we have a top 10 University, a major new visitor economy development (Eden North) & a large population yet somehow are always missing from plans!
I grew up in Carlisle. There's so little call for travel between there and Barrow that I had to go check to confirm that line already exists.
The little spur by Stoke is, I assume, Stoke-on-Trent to Leek. It's an old line that would be relatively trivial (in the railway-building scale) to reopen.
The only notable thing in Stranraer is the ferry terminal. Is there demand for a rail line? Why join it to Gretna instead of Dumfries or Carlisle?
@JetlagJen@ChrisMayLA6 the main 'attraction' for Stranraer will be the ferry at Cairnryan. At present this is only connected to Ayr by bus. Having driven Carlisle to Stranraer it's a long way (~100 miles) so moving freight onto rail would make sense.
The old 'port road' line (lost to Beeching) used to run through Castle Douglas and Dumfries to Gretna and Carlisle where it joined the main west coast line to Glasgow. So I would have expected them to name Carlisle and Cairnryan as the termini.
@JetlagJen@ChrisMayLA6 correction - what they seem to be proposing is an upgrade to the A75 road link from Gretna to Stranraer.
So save money on rail (HS2) and spend it on roads instead.
This is the only Scottish element of the 'what to do with the scrapping the HS2 northern leg savings' proposals.
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