Sustainable Newburgh transport?
So do we!
Rail travel is the most sustainable form of public transport - bringing quieter roads and cleaner air. It reduces carbon emissions by two-thirds.
Newburgh, however, does not do sustainable travel. Not enough people use the buses. Instead, they travel by car. Newburgh is certainly not a feather in the cap of Transport's Scotland's ambition for greener travel.
Poor public transport
Network Rail have created a Climate Action Plan as part of the Scottish Government's target of net zero emissions by 2045. The action plan highlights the delivery of social value benefits through job creation, training opportunities and reconnecting communities to the network. Moving the current operational network to net zero future must clearly go hand in hand with getting more people onto the network.
But are large, fully featured stations always the answer? The jury is out on the success of recently opened, large rural stations with very handsome prices!
Would the deployment of a larger number of smaller, cheaper, modular stations be a better solution to getting people onto rail?
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The campaign certainly believe a cheap, small-form halt is the right solution for Newburgh
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There are many communities like ours sitting on or near a train line who could also benefit from a small station. But the last short-form station opened in Scotland was at Beauly in 2013. It was seen by the then Transport Minister as a success. A big outcome for a community and its small, proportionally-sized halt.
Newburgh, in its 15 year of its campaign is getting impatient waiting to get access. The bus service does not attract enough people away from using the car.
We think no plans to forge ahead towards net zero can be done without opening more stations.
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​Introducing the halt (the small station)
Many smaller rail stations were once entitled 'halts'. Use of the term was removed from timetables by British Rail in 1974 then came back in 1978 for the opening of the IBM Halt in Greenock in Scotland. That halt closed but meanwhile two other stations in England opened and are today identified as halts. The name is being increasingly used to distinguish a small station with minimal infrastructure from a larger fully-featured station.
The Campaign proposes a smaller, modular halt for our town.​​
St Keyne Wishing Well Halt in Cornwall - By Geoff Sheppard
The halt can be a very affordable modular design, assembled on site using sustainable pre-build factory components. Assembly costs are low since fewer trucks are needed to bring components to a site. This also reduces the level of carbon emissions and the assembly does not require the same level of construction skills as does a traditional 'bricks and mortar build. ​
An unmanned halt can comprise little more than a short platform, a ticket machine, a shelter and an electronic timetable. And ensuring it is made fully accessible, makes it a viable station.It can be deployed quickly at minimal cost AND it can be removed and deployed elsewhere if there are not enough passengers using it.
From a government perspective -what is there not to like?
Transport Scotland
We believe a better railway for Scotland is possible and we're investing over £4 billion to make it a reality
From the Transport Scotland website
An all singing, all dancing station
A halt at Newburgh would be a very affordable and proportionate project that would have a significant, positive impact.
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We believe it is a bargain compared to the big beasts
The low price of a small halt at Newburgh contrasts keenly with the costs of recently opened rural stations. The £22m Reston station, a fully-featured 'bells and whistles' stop, opened in 2022. It serves the 10 and half thousand people of East Berwickshire. Reston costs when considered on a platform metre by metre basis comes in quite cheap. But it still a lot of station for a small community.
Passenger numbers for Reston do not seem to justify the station's capital cost so far. It has been called, perhaps unfairly, a white elephant by the Glasgow Herald.
The station was modelled on a 30-year business plan -a long time to wait to gauge its success or failure. There may be a future increase in passenger numbers, of course. but it is not apparent from local development plans just where this increase will come from.​
Reston serve a sizeable geographical catchment area with a small population. One assumes the business case considered where the passenger numbers needed to justify the station cost came from. How do passengers in scattered rural communities get to the station? By car?
If this is a sustainable transport solution for the future, are there plans for electric buses running regularly over an expanded network in the county (and beyond) to connect the station to its hinterland? There is no sign of this in the local development plans. There appears to be no coordinated travel approach to connecting bus, rail and active travel paths. ​
Or is this station a disproportionate response to a community's want for a station?
A future of sustainable travel
A halt is a proportionate transport solution for the town. It can be the hub of a future sustainable transport system for North East Fife.
It would complement the connecting of the National Cycle Network with Newburgh. Being able to get to a rail station using an safe active travel path is surely a bhealthy incentive for many to leave their cars at home and travel by train.
The town is popular with walkers and cyclists. The popular Fife Coastal Path starts in the town. There are recognised cycle routes that pass through Newburgh.
A joined up rail and cycle/walk path network offers great opportunities to develop walking and cycling related tourism.
Reconnecting with the River Tay
A proposed River Tay river taxi service in will improve accessibility to the River Tay and enhance public enjoyment of the waterway. It is part of a broader regeneration project aiming to revitalize the river as a recreational space. The boats will offer both recreational and commuter travel opportunities.
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Newburgh is one of five proposed stops for a service that will run between Perth, Scone and Dundee.
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Together with a train station and active travel path, Newburgh can thrive as a town whose economic heart is centred on healthy sustainable travel and leisure.​
Transport Scotland
"We are investing in a fully sustainable transport network, cleaning up, joining up and raising the visibility of the full range of transport options whilst encouraging people to think about how they make their journeys..."
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From the Transport Scotland Website
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Newburgh needs a rail station to properly connect to Fife, to Scotland and to the Scottish economy​
The bus is part of a local transport hub
Transport Scotland and the Scottish Government are actively advancing the concept of Local Link Hubs in rural areas, aiming to enhance connectivity, reduce car dependency, and support sustainable mobility.​​
Newburgh, a test case for better rural transport?
Ways to kjhkjh
Here in Newburgh the bus would remain important in connecting outlining communities to a reopened train station. Soon the building of an Active Travel will connect the town to Perthshire and beyond. later a river taxi to Perth and Dundee.Together, the modes of transport offer a comprehensive and SUSTAINABLE means to travel. ​
At the heart of all this must be the train station.