Where Worlds Collide » Borders Railway http://www.kalyr.co.uk/weblog The blogs of Tim Hall Fri, 10 Mar 2017 15:33:59 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=3.7.41 The Queen Opens The Borders Railway http://www.kalyr.co.uk/weblog/railways/transport/the-queen-opens-the-borders-railway/ http://www.kalyr.co.uk/weblog/railways/transport/the-queen-opens-the-borders-railway/#comments Wed, 09 Sep 2015 20:48:10 +0000 http://www.kalyr.co.uk/weblog/?p=13497 Continue reading →]]> Union of South AfricaGood to see The Queen celebrating becoming Britain’s longest reigning monarch by taking Nicola Sturgeon on a train ride pulled by a locomotive whose name includes the word “Union”. I’d love to know if she had any influence in choosing No 60009 “Union of South Africa” as the locomotive to pull the train.

The Borders Railway, which runs for more than 30 miles from Edinburgh to Tweedbank via Galashiels is the most ambitious railway reopening project to date. The original line, the former Waverley Route, ran from Edinburgh through Galashiels and Hawick to Carlisle. It was one of the last and most controversial of the sixties Beeching closures, wrongly considered an unnecessary duplication of the existing west coast main line despite being an important link for communities along the route.

Hopefully Tweedbank will only be the temporary terminus, and the line will be extended in due course to Hawick and beyond. Will The Queen still reign when 60009 steams beyond Tweedbank towards Carlisle?

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