Scottish Referendum / Independence - Vol 7

[r11co]

Welshbeef said:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3603428/St...

Well as much as I dislike his politics he certainly has good taste in ladies. However his morale compass is sadly lacking having an affair as an upstanding member of the community.

I'm no great believer that salacious tittle-tattle should matter with public figures unless their dalliances create a conflict of interest or jeopardise national security - neither of which apply to Hosie (except perhaps his abuse of expenses when conducting this affair).

However, one has to question his judgement and sanity having an extra-marital affair when his wife is also a high-ranking SNP politician and one of the party leader's best friends.

[NoNeed]

Always Westminster's fault, is the SNP preparing this argument for when they approve fracking?

http://www.heraldscotland.com/news/14525110.SNP39_s_Mhairi_Black_blamed_for_spreading___39_misleading_nonsense__39over_fracking/

[Edinburger]

Hate to say I told you so... but...

Borders Railway beats forecast passenger levels by 22%

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-south-scotla...

[Troubleatmill]

Edinburger said:

Hate to say I told you so... but...

Borders Railway beats forecast passenger levels by 22%

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-south-scotla...

It is good news.... but the forecasts are total finger in the air.


Tweedbank Forecast 18,978 Actual 183,918
Galashiels Forecast 20,567 Actual 104,593
Stow Forecast 5,129 Actual 24,365
Gorebridge Forecast 79,014 Actual 39,400
Newton grange Forecast 46,449 Actual 50,480
Eskbank Forecast 114,568 Actual 65,672
Shaw fair Forecast 54,298 Actual 9,398
Brunstane/Newcraighall Forecast 865 Actual 11,344
Edinburgh Waverley Forecast 228,156 Actual 205,203
Total Forecast 568,023 Actual 694,373

[simoid]

@ forecasts in the hundreds

[Jockman]

Are they weather forecasts, like on R4?

[///ajd]

Edinburger said:

Hate to say I told you so... but...

Borders Railway beats forecast passenger levels by 22%

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-south-scotla...

Fair play, westminster barnett funding has done something good that the SNP didn't manage to balls up or cut funding for to pay for pointless alba roadsigns.

[Jockman]

simoid said:

@ forecasts in the hundreds

You need to remember, London has a bigger population than Scotland

[Edinburger]

simoid said:

@ forecasts in the hundreds

Demography.

[Edinburger]

///ajd said:

Fair play, westminster barnett funding has done something good that the SNP didn't manage to balls up or cut funding for to pay for pointless alba roadsigns.

Nice twist. You must be so proud.

[Edinburger]

Troubleatmill said:

Edinburger said:

Hate to say I told you so... but...

Borders Railway beats forecast passenger levels by 22%

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-south-scotla...

It is good news.... but the forecasts are total finger in the air.


Tweedbank Forecast 18,978 Actual 183,918
Galashiels Forecast 20,567 Actual 104,593
Stow Forecast 5,129 Actual 24,365
Gorebridge Forecast 79,014 Actual 39,400
Newton grange Forecast 46,449 Actual 50,480
Eskbank Forecast 114,568 Actual 65,672
Shaw fair Forecast 54,298 Actual 9,398
Brunstane/Newcraighall Forecast 865 Actual 11,344
Edinburgh Waverley Forecast 228,156 Actual 205,203
Total Forecast 568,023 Actual 694,373

There must be a science to forecasting, but some of those are ludicrous.

Shawfair for example, at the moment that's a station in the middle of nowhere because they've only just starting building the new town of Shawfair so where they expected 54K from is a mystery. Eskbank seems ridiculously high given the excellent transport infrastructure in total area. And Brunstane forecast is crazy too.

But at the end of the day, that all goes into the cost/benefit analysis.

[A.J.M]

http://stv.tv/news/politics/1355883-one-third-of-s...


Interesting.

Two full terms in control of education and they have made it worse than before.
That's some superb achievement.

Still, at least they got some passengers on a train. Looking after the important issues as ever.

[///ajd]

Edinburger said:

///ajd said:

Fair play, westminster barnett funding has done something good that the SNP didn't manage to balls up or cut funding for to pay for pointless alba roadsigns.

Nice twist. You must be so proud.

I genuinely glad the train is a success.

There is however always room for a little joke.

[Edinburger]

///ajd said:

Edinburger said:

///ajd said:

Fair play, westminster barnett funding has done something good that the SNP didn't manage to balls up or cut funding for to pay for pointless alba roadsigns.

Nice twist. You must be so proud.

I genuinely glad the train is a success.

There is however always room for a little joke.

Naturally.

[hidetheelephants]

///ajd said:

Fair play, westminster barnett funding has done something good that the SNP didn't manage to balls up or cut funding for to pay for pointless alba roadsigns.

They did balls it up though; the cost of making bridges, cuttings, etc wide enough for double track was trimmed to save a few percent, if the traffic grows appreciably it will cost many times more and be extremely disruptive to widen these while the track is in use. It is predicted to grow as there's a lot of housing being built in this new addition to Auld Reekie's commuter belt, the figures are likely distorted by many trains being run at capacity(some genius allocated two-car sets rather than 3- or 4-car sets) leaving folk stood on the platform and seeking alternative transport, and the opening of the railway has emptied Stagecoach's buses so they're now slashing the number of services to Edinburgh they run, these passengers will be compelled to use the train. Figures for this summer will be interesting as the tourist/hospitality sector along the line report significant growth in bookings. If the magic money tree is shaken to pay for a further extension to Melrose(likely), Hawick(less likely) or Carlisle(not very likely at all really), then the double tracking will be pretty much essential to cope with the additional traffic.

[simoid]

Perhaps they expected construction workers to use the railway to Shawfair

[simoid]

More SNP hypocrisy? Surely not:

Nicola Sturgeon facing more questions over China deal after FOI documents release - www.telegraph.co.uk
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/05/31/nicola-...

I wonder how far they'll go.

[ianrb]

Edinburger said:

Hate to say I told you so... but...

Borders Railway beats forecast passenger levels by 22%

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-south-scotla...

And if you look a bit harder: The short commuter trips to and from Edinburgh are below estimate, but the longer trips to Stow, Galashiels and Tweedbank are above estimate. So in the first 6 months of the line's existance there was quite a lot of tourist traffic. But do you really expect that to continue, I mean have you ever been to Tweedbank or Galashiels? To be blunt there is no there, there.

It's going to evolve into a white elephant, and its single track section mean they only way it could be extented would be by ripping it up and starting again.

[gofasterrosssco]

Poor McGarry just can't catch a break huh..

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-scotland-pol...

[Welshbeef]

ianrb said:

Edinburger said:

Hate to say I told you so... but...

Borders Railway beats forecast passenger levels by 22%

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-south-scotla...

And if you look a bit harder: The short commuter trips to and from Edinburgh are below estimate, but the longer trips to Stow, Galashiels and Tweedbank are above estimate. So in the first 6 months of the line's existance there was quite a lot of tourist traffic. But do you really expect that to continue, I mean have you ever been to Tweedbank or Galashiels? To be blunt there is no there, there.

It's going to evolve into a white elephant, and its single track section mean they only way it could be extented would be by ripping it up and starting again.

Hopefully there is a proper joined up transport plan be it road rail tram monorail not just a why not.

I hope this pays off as its rUKs cash that has been invested in it - however I've read that it seems it's taken custom away from buses and routes or frequencies have been cut. It might be good if roads are congested but I doubt that very much in the expanse of Scotland so your looking at more isolation for older people who used the handy bus but cannot get to the train.