ChatterBank1 min ago
Last Refuges Of A Scoundrel
26 Answers
Austerity, Brexit and the pandemic. How long will the terminally useless and possibly corrupt be able to fall back on the above for their abject failure and hopelessness?
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She and her fellow loons wanted to break away and run a free country yet can't even organise a very narrow strip of it after decades of hot air and lies.
The North-East of England may empathise having their own issues with dualling the top end of the A1.
Anyway, at least she's toast as far as being in power goes.
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The dualling of the A9 is not the only transport infrastructure failure of the Scottish government.
The “Highland Main [railway] Line” between Perth and Inverness is a line between two of Scotland’s most prominent cities. But it is not electrified (as are virtually none of Scotland's railways north of the Edinburgh-Glasgow corridor) and two thirds of its 118 mile length is single track. This severely limits its capacity. The fastest journey time is over two hours and services frequently suffer delays because of the limited number of passing places. The fastest service from Edinburgh to Inverness (175 miles) takes three and a half hours, with most services taking nearer to four hours. From Edinburgh to London is more than twice the distance (393 miles) and can be covered in about four and a quarter hours.
The “Far North Line” (FNL) stretches from Inverness to Thurso and Wick. It is 161 miles to Wick though trains cover 174 miles as they reverse at Gerogemas Junction to serve Thurso first before reversing again to return to Georgemas and then on to Wick. It also serves freight and is important to the decommissioning of Dounreay nuclear power station and research centre. This line is almost entirely single track with few passing places and it suffers terribly from delays. Northbound trains are sometimes held at Inverness to wait for late connecting trains from the south (which suffer delays because of lack of capacity on the Highland Main Line). This impacts on the entire service on the FNL, which only has four trains per day covering the whole route. Because of the limited passing places any delayed train causes repercussions through the entire line.
The ”Friends of the Far North Line” and other interested parties have been campaigning for decades for an additional passing loop in the Lentran area, roughly half way on the single track stretch between Inverness and Muir of Ord. This is a particularly busy stretch of the line as it also accommodates Inverness “commuter” services to Dingwall and Tain as well as the service from Inverness to Kyle of Lochalsh. The cost of this would be minimal. Space is available (there was a passing loop there but it was removed in the 1970s) and all it would require is a short length of track, two sets of points and integration into the line’s signalling system. The benefits would be enormous as it is estimated that around 70% of delays on both lines would be eliminated or reduced considerably.
But the Scottish government has continually kicked this plan into touch, citing lack of funds, whilst lavishing huge amounts on the A9 (with limited success, it seems). For a government so keen on environmental issues, I would have thought that prioritising rail over road would be a no-brainer.
im not so sure abut that NJ. It would cost *roughly* £30 for petrol there and back, whereas the train journey is *roughly* the same price. Then you have to get from the station to wherever you're going. All you need is for more than 1 person to be going (or a family) and it makes no sense to go by train anymore
Friends in Perth tell me they bought tickets to Inverness(return) on the train for £120 for two.A car journey on a dual-carriageway A9 would cost about £20.Nah,we are just teuchters to the SNP down in Edinburgh.Whether the Labour lot or the Tory lot will be any different?Who knows.They cant treat us any worse than the SNP did.
YNNAFYMMI, "we were promised the A9 to be dualled back in 2011,always put back,hundreds died on this deathtrap road,since 2011.....SNP lied,hundreds died."
From Wikipedia, "As of July 2023, 335 people had been killed on the Perth-to-Inverness stretch of the road since 1979 (an average of 7.6 death per year), 59 of which occurred between 2011 and 2022 (an average of 5.4 deaths per year)."
Fifty-nine deaths between 2011 and 2022 means that unless there has been an unprecedented increase in the average annual deaths since then, the figure is nowhere near, "hundreds".
Perhaps you should look at your own failings before accusing others of lying?
The route between Edinburgh, Stirling and Inverness was officially designated a trunk road and given its now familiar title in 1922.
Things took a huge leap forward in 1970.
The publication of a white paper identified the A9 as a road in serious need of investment.
May 1972: A huge programme of works was announced by the UK government, reconstructing the full road to modern standards and providing several bypasses.
However, even at this stage questions were raised about why it wasn’t being dualled.
August 1975: Construction of the Longman roundabout is complete
June 1976-September 1981: A number of significant bypasses are built during a five-year frenzy of construction.
Dalwhinnie, Dunkeld, Birnam, Luncarty, Aviemore and Pitlochry get one each for a combined cost of £37m.
August 1982: The Kessock Bridge opens at a cost of £35m, one of the major construction milestones of the plan.
Further north, the Cromarty Bridge set the pace when it opened in 1979. The Dornoch Bridge would ultimately follow in 1991.
October 1989: Five people are killed in an accident near Dunkeld.
The fallout prompts comments from a local councillor that accidents are being caused by “stupid drivers” driving at high speeds and the Daily Record refers to the road as “the killer A9” for the first time.
A total of 21 people are killed in a nine-month stretch and the tag sticks.
January 1990: Tayside North MP Bill Walker calls for signs displaying the number of accidents and people killed to be erected at the roadside. Mr Walker makes a fresh call to dual the A9 in February 1991 after another fatal accident near Calvine.
May 1999: The Scottish Parliament opens to huge fanfare. There is a sense of optimism that devolution will offer greater opportunities to fix our nation’s problems. But as far as the A9 is concerned, no miles of dual carriageway between Perth and Inverness are added between 1999 and 2011.
September 2006: The Scottish Conservatives launch a fresh campaign to fully dual the A9 ahead of the following year’s Holyrood election.
That summer, five people die on the road within a month over the summer.
Between 1999 and 2006, more than 80 people are killed on the route.
The Scottish Government, at this point a coalition between Labour and the Lib Dems since 1999, repeatedly resists claims to dual the road.
August 2008: First Minister Alex Salmond promises to dual the entire stretch of the A9 between Perth and Inverness during a historic cabinet meeting held in the Highland capital.
December 2011: Scottish Ministers confirm a commitment to complete the dualling project by 2025.
What a shambles. I feel that "fanny"does indeed have a point! Trains? Ferries? Roads? How are the airports coming along?
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Not just Scotland. I've driven the A9 several times and I empathise. Here, the A64 (major link to coast from industrial W. Yorks.) was 1st proposed to be dualled in 1968. Yes, 56 years ago it was deemed necessary. A tractor pulling onto it can result in a 3 - 4 mile tail-back (I worked it out once when driving the other way earlier this year).
Rail service is often cancelled. Roads work out cheaper. It has all gone badly wrong.
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