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@Person4148better obviously we'd prefer it all to be double, but we aren't treating that as a red line for our campaign. Rather, we are fighting for the line to have capacity for a half-hourly passenger rail services plus one freight train in each direction every hour. We will let the boffins calculate what is required for that in the design stage. If you want to stay up to date with the campaign, please do follow us on Facebook and Twitter, there is much more to come this year.

​@@CNERail thanks for the info!

@@JKMeZmA follow us on social media, Facebook and Twitter @CNERail, and check out the website. Well be having local meetings in Ellon Peterhead and Fraserburgh around February so keep an eye out for those!

@ thanks for the info!

They were never going to be permanent, just an interim measure until electric or bimode stock becomes available

They should really consider reopening the Dundee to Forfar line. Most of the trackbed still remains

@Paws4thot sorry I don't get the relevance of this point?

If we could get fewer lorries on the road in the first place, then that will do more to solve the problems mentioned than dualing roads will.

​@@pragueuprising560 It's like banging your head against a brick wall, 70+ years of building more roads hasn't solved the problem, try something different.

@@Mark-Catz I'm 75 and all of these roads have been virtually unchanged the whole of my lifetime (apart from a few village by-passes)...so where are these roads we've been building for the last 70+ years because they're not across rural Scotland ? We're still driving on roads built by General Wade after the 1745 Rebellion.

And it's a tune called Callum's Road!

I was wondering about any potential for freight too

No the bbc said the oil has ran out 7 years ago so not needed

It's a very pretty viaduct tho, so the odds of it getting demolished to put in a concrete double track bridge are slim

@@groeacht8525 Build an additional bridge alongside - it's not uncommon

Fascists everywhere.

@@rosiefay7283 Peterhead and Fraserburgh are the 'largest and furthest'...there may be towns further, but they aren't larger, and there may be towns larger, but they are closer! An extension of the Far North line under the Pentland Firth however would be one of those projects that attracts the attention of the world.

​@@CNERailSomeone obviously isn't going to Shetland for their holidays!! Great video BTW. 👍

Great video. The two somewhat comparable towns that occur to me (in terms of population and distance from railhead) are Omagh and Enniskillen.

​@@richardhussHave you found "Fund the Nine" YT Channel concerning restoration of services twix Letterkenny, Derry, Strabane, Omagh, Dungannon and Portadown? I agree Enniskillen ought to be on that list too.

They're not in Great Britain.

Yes, but why didn’t Beeching question it? Say something like; “Hang on a minute, we can’t get rid of this much of the rail network. A lot of this is well used and will piss thousands if not millions of people off!” Marples was a git with vested interests and should never have been transport minister.

@@nigelkthomas9501 He was appointed to the job because they knew Beeching would not question it and of course at the back of Beeching's mind. was he may receive an honour.

​@@G4WYZYou're horribly wide of the mark. Long before Beeching's tenure, government had imposed a requirement that British Railways financially break even. The reasons this was a frankly ridiculous demand go back to the dawn of railways and lie squarely with government. There was no central 'controlling mind' at any point before the ROD control during WW1. This translated as utterly ad-hoc, often crazily speculative development of hopelessly unremunerative lines, by no means all of which were rural branches. The costs of the GCR 'London Extension' might not have accounted for all of the LNER's financial woes, but sure as hell didn't help. In the wake of WW1, sale of thousands of 'War Surplus' vans and lorries to demobbed troops to enable foundation of goods transport businesses unhindered by the 'common carrier' obligations which hamstrung the railways led to the loss of a considerable amount of goods traffic, meaning many lines which had in truth always been marginal were rendered hopelessly uneconomic. The Big 4 lobbied for repeal of theor common carrier obligations more than once. Parliament, as they often do, precavicated and did nothing. In parallel with the decline in general wagonload goods traffic, introduction of bus services, as vehicles became more reliable, was often both more convenient and cheaper than the train greatly impacted passenger numbers. This meant "The Big Four" were seriously concerned with their legal commitments to financial drains on resources well before WW2 state control effectively put a hold on normal financial considerations (and witness income tax rates during those years, not all of which could be described as 'for the war effort'!). Following WW2 and increasingly with the end of rationing, add to the foregoing the proliferation of private car ownership and what freight traffic remained was largely coal, bound for electricity generating stations (small local plant replaced by centralieed power stations following the advent of the National Grid), town gas production, domestic fires and the railways' own steam loco fleet. You don't need to have written a Master's Thesis to answer where the trajectory of coal tonnage was headed, even before the advent of North Sea oil and gas. At the time of Beeching's 'Restructuring' report (which contained many positives that went ignored by governement) there was *no* legal recognition of indirect benefits of railways to communities, or recognition of social needs. That came in during Barbara Castle's time as Min of Transport. Prior to Beeching, BR was legally *prevented* from abandoning horrendously unremunerative lines when their original authorising legislation specified maintenance of services as a condition of construction (see the Ffestiniog Railway's Schrödinger-ish limbo between 1946-54 as a comparatively straightforward introduction to that legal minefield). If there were unforgivable flaws in the wake of (rather than within) the Beeching Report, they lay in the crazy notion of 'duplicate routes' and the permissive flogging off of formation by successive governments of both stripes. Beeching merely *reported* , he didn't have authority to close anything. That power lead with the Minister (later SoS) for Transport. .... and as chairman of ICI, one of Britain's foremost conglomerates at the time, Beeching would likely have been awarded something without any stint at BR, just as later BR chairmen were, both during and after their time in post. If you want a self-serving villain, look to the biography of Ernest Marples.

Actually closed under the Labour Government elected in 1964 which could have put the Beeching Proposals on hold but didnt.

​@@G4WYZA comprehensive reply mysteriously got deleted. Let's try again. • Beeching 'reported', Parliament debated, the Minister Of Transport authorised closure. No BR Chairman before or after Beeching had the authority to simply close lines. • wagonload freight had been in decline since the sale of War Surplus vans and lorries to demobbed troops following WW1 when many unregulated transport operations mushroomed, whilst railways reamined saddled with common carrier" obligations which Parliament refused to rescind. • short distance passenger numbers on many lines were badly hit by bus competition from the 1920s onwards. This only got worse with the advent of (usually) larger diesel buses post WW2. • coal traffic largely kept many branchlines going. The advent of the National Grid meant fewer, larger generating stations, meaning less branch line coal traffic as the grid came to completion. The end of steam reduced internal coal traffic and North Sea oils and gas merely accelerated the decline in coal tonnage as gas fired central heating proliferated, long after Beeching's time (those images of gas and oil pipes on a doomed freight line prove the point). • long and short distance passenger numbers decined as private car ownership increased after WW2, as rationing ended. • BR was ordered to break even economically long before Beeching and the railway had no authority to operate lines based on social need until Barbara Castle's stint as Min of Trans. • many positive points within 'Reshaping' went unrealised. In point of fact, they still largely are. Freightliner worked, Speedlink did well for decades (but needed investment it didn't receive) and Merry go Round coal trains coped superbly with what mineral traffic remained. Have a look at Beeching's recommendations for electrification of core lines. Still getting spurious arguments over *that* ... right now! • sale of redundant rail formation was a decision of governement, not of Beeching. Just look at HS2 to see how well *that* lesson has sunk in. • as chairman of ICI, Beeching would likely have been given some form of recognition. Don't forget many significant board members had receive gongs or ennoblement before and after Beeching. I think your charge is grossly unfair. You want a pantomime villain, look to Ernest Marples.

Agreed. There were often good reasons why routes failed and a decent modern design would serve far better. I do hope we see services to these significant towns restored ... preferably sooner rather than later!

When the Eurotunnel was originally built, the promise was that Eurostar trains would go all the way to Scotland. That promise was broken. The existing mainline network has mixed traffic on it (InterCity trains going quickly + commuter trains and freight trains going slowly). The original point of HS2 was to "get rid of the InterCity trains", so that the existing mainlines could have more local trains running. And because freight trains travel at a similar speed to commuter trains, it would be possible to also run more freight trains through the Midlands to the North of England and to Scotland. If the St Fergus Gas Terminal is going to supply hydrogen and aviation fuel, then not having bottlenecks in the rail-freight supply network will be important to making sure as much fuel can be sent out of the Aberdeenshire region as possible. There have been a number of problems with HS2. The original costings were underestimations and people who tired to bring that to the attention of Parliament were sacked to the problems could be covered up. Even when the last government knew about problems, they lied in Parliament and pretended there were no problems. And there have been some needless bits of NIMBYism by people in the South East of England, such as a council complaining that HS2 will spoil the natural beauty of an area where HS2 runs past a rubbish disposal area. Another problem with HS2, is instead of having a single route, like this awesome looking Campaign for North East Rail, both the Western Leg and Eastern Leg of HS2 were designed with a number of spurs that linked to terminal stations that point south towards London. What could (and should) be a pair of high speed railway line that have south facing platforms that link to London and Europe and north facing platforms that link to Edinburgh and Glasgow (and hopefully eventually Aberdeen) was instead designed as a system with multiple branches all pointed at a terminal at Euston station. It is actually possible to build multiple railway projects. And, as HS2 investment was being organised based on loans that would be repaid by future revenue, cancelling HS2 would never free up magic money to be invested elsewhere. The North East Rail route should be backed by Central Government because it is the right thing to do to improve the lives of many people in the local area. What does or does not happen with HS2 really does not alter the viability of the project. But the one thing we need to do is step away from the idea of "How much is this railway going to earn?" And that is because, if Central Government funds all things based on how much money is going to be returned to the public purse, that will push most of the development towards the Scottish Central Belt and other populated areas. The study that Campaign for North East Rail has done is awesome. We need more of that sort of thing.

You clearly have not studied the facts about HS2. The whole project (the whole project) transforms rail connection to Scotland, the North West and North East. It relieves the present lines and allows extra capacity for more local services and most important of all, extra freight capacity for our entire country.

@@SWRural-fk2ub Thank you for posting this, I was going to reply.

The biggest winners from HS2 are other network users, as it increases capacity.

HS2 was necessary as a second London Birmingham track in view of existing tracks reaching capacity, However the case for the "fastest train un Europe" was not necessary. Even the original idea ) of a Glasgow to Amsterdam link to fit into EU plans was wasted by the need for speed.

@@iam433 Hi, as this study is at a high level cost estimates are loose at this stage. Tighter estimated costings will be a product of the next and final study stage. What we can say is that all of the deviations mentioned in the video have been assessed as "worth the cost", that is to say, the consultant who performed the analysis - AECOM have assessed that these deviations provide enough benefits to justify the cost of the deviation. Further, in the case of the Hatton diversion, it was found that following the original route would be more expensive due to the need to cross over the A90 and back again, an expense that can be avoided by "cutting the corner" and heading directly for Cruden Bay. CNER are striving to fund a Detailed Options Appraisal in 2025, which will come with detailed and thorough cost breakdowns for the project at that stage.

@ thanks for the reply. It’s certainly an interesting project and having driven to / from Peterhead once was struck by the number of trucks on the road. It’s not my local area albeit I am a railwayman and can see justification in reopening to Peterhead and Fraserburgh. I have travelled by rail many times over 35 years both to Inverness and Aberdeen and between both and the increase in passenger numbers is astounding. I wish you all the best and hopefully I’ll have another reopening to go to.

How about the *completion* of the Borders Line (as well, not instead of)? At least *passive provision* for doubling and sparking up ought to be included.

​@@TheHoveHereticWhile it would be nice to see both, realistically it's going to be one or the other. Personally, I think the case in the north east is stronger as the area could really use the investment and existing transport links are very poor.

I agree - and I'd like to see it pushed beyond Ballater all the way to Braemar . . . But let's at least get this opened first. It's success can be pointed to as evidence that North East Rail projects have massive potential!

@@WorldWide_Dom there will be local meetings being held in the early new year to inform folk, get discussions going and as an opportunity for locals like us to pitch in too. Keep an eye out around Feb on our website, Facebook and twitter.

How is it we keep referring to it as Aberdeenshire? I thought Aberdeen was in Grampian.

@@nigelkthomas9501Grampian hasn’t been around since 1996, still was a stretch to call the NE Grampian regardless, only a small portion of the Grampian Highlands are in Aberdeenshire.

Well, if the Scottish SNP government have anything to do with this, we'll still all be talking about it in 10 years time😂!!!

Stay tuned, we're cooking up a big update to this video in a few weeks

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