Two more stations open for business: Part 2

Saturday 16th December 2023

370 miles north of the brand new Brent Cross West station is the location of this week’s second new addition to the rail network map; in the tiny village of East Linton, population 1,790. No, I haven’t missed a 0 off. It’s a new station for a population of 1,790. It was opened at 10:30 on Wednesday morning by Scottish Transport Minister Fiona Hyslop, accompanied by various dignitaries and the much respected Alex Hynes, ScotRail managing director (see below).

Why 10:30 on a Wednesday morning, when the new timetable officially started last Sunday? Well, it’s not easy to fit these things into a Minster’s busy diary, so trains had been passing through without stopping until the appointed day and hour.

What, you might ask, has little East Linton done to receive the wonderful early Christmas gift of a … £15 million station with two-platforms, 114 parking spaces, cycle storage, bus stop, footbridge with lifts, seats, shelters, dot matrix signs and ticket machine on the busy (train-path restricted) East Coast Main Line situated between Dunbar and Edinburgh?

I really don’t know the answer other than the official line being “it represents the delivery of a significant investment by the Scottish Government that is expected to support economic growth in the area by enabling residents access to an expanded range of employment and leisure options.”

Which makes me wonder if residents realise “economic growth” almost certainly means significant expansion of their village with new houses.

Until yesterday the 1,790 residents wanting to use public transport to reach Edinburgh or Dunbar only had a half hourly East Coast Buses route X7 along with five journeys a day on Borders Buses route 253 linking Edinburgh with East Linton, Dunbar and Berwick-upon-Tweed.

Now they also have the luxury of a stopping train service to either Edinburgh or Dunbar (from ScotRail) and also TransPennine Express (TPE) journeys which continue further south to Berwick-upon-Tweed and Newcastle and even one evening journey all the way to Liverpool Lime Street.

Mondays to Fridays sees five ScotRail and five TPE journeys to Edinburgh (four and seven on Saturdays and four TPE on Sundays) with six ScotRail and six TPE journeys to Dunbar (five and seven on Saturdays and five on Sundays).

But if passengers want to see a full timetable of departures before they leave home, they’re going to have to do thorough online research as ScotRail haven’t seen fit to include the TPE journeys in its online PDF timetable …

… and TPE hasn’t reciprocated to include ScotRail journeys in its online PDF timetable.

Luckily good sense has prevailed for the timetable displayed at the station which does contain both operators’ journeys and online Journey Planners also show both.

My good friend Geoff Marshall, who’s excellent video about the new station is available on YouTube, has produced a helpful table showing the departures each hour…

… which highlights a westbound five hour gap in the evenings and an eastbound four hour gap in the mornings which won’t endear the service to those needing to travel at those times.

And, you’re not going to believe this. If you want to buy a return ticket from East Linton to Edinburgh in an era of everyone knowing the complex rail ticketing system needs simplifying, we have a brand new station from which you can pay £10 to travel on either ScotRail or TPE but just £8 if you travel only on TPE (there and back). A single with ScotRail or TPE is £9.30 but travel on TPE and it’s £7.

A similar sitaution applies to Dunbar (£2.60 single with ScotRail or TPE; £2.40 TPE only with a return at either £2.70 or £2.50).

Which just goes to show the ridiculous state our railways have reached. And before commentators jump in and blame privatisation, both ScotRail and TPE are nationalised, albeit by different Governments.

It gets even dafter, as on Wednesday there wasn’t just one opening ceremony with the Minister naming a train and doing the ceremonial honours at around 10:30 when most of the village residents turned out to watch, but an hour and a half later the first southbound TPE train to stop, pulled into the station and enjoyed another opening ceremony with a different set of Scottish jig dancers and photo opportunities with the managing director and another train naming ceremony (see below).

Both ceremonies saw special commemorative tickets handed out with two different branded designs, one for ScotRail, and one for TPE.

It was very much a ‘one new station, two opening ceremonial events’ kind of affair. Bizarre.

I understand there’s hope passengers will be attracted to use East Linton as a kind of Park & Ride option from the wider surrounding area. In which case 114 parking spaces doesn’t sound very many to me. But the hinterland isn’t exactly characterised by its density of population and helpful road layout with the largest unserved-by-rail community of Haddington well served by buses and located closer to Edinburgh to the west from where I can’t see potential passengers heading east to East Linton.

And that bus shelter immediately outside the station …

… yet another bus-shelter-tick-box exercise. No buses use it as its inconveniently away from the main road that passes through the village used by buses.

Roger French with photography courtesy of Geoff Marshall to whom many thanks.

Blogging timetable: 06:00 TThS

Comments are welcome but please keep them relevant to the blog topic, avoid personal insults and add your name (or an identifier). Thank you.