Let's be fair - this is more about how staggerlingly expensive it is to built new stations. Some of it is future-proofing and basic spec - if longer trains could call in the future, it'll cost more and be very disruptive on the ECML to lengthen them. There's a preference now for building stations with no curve in the platforms. Lifts are a requirement to allow access for all. etc. etc. It all adds up. I tried out return journeys from both Reston and East Linton last January. I was surprised how small a place Reston is, but I saw more passengers at Reston. A bus did call while I was waiting, and I made use of the EV charging. By the way, national station usage figures are calculated on entries and exits. Presumably the Herald halved the figure, perhaps believing nobody makes a single journey. But to compare, you must use the same standard as everywhere else. A more pertinent question might be why was so much had to be spent to retain Breich station, rather than close it.
Thanks for your comments. "Modern-day standards" (as they often say) simply make everything in life more expensive. I commented in another one of my films that the Department for Transport discourage the construction of new stations on curved track - but some slip through the net like Robroyston just along the road from me. It's to do with safety as the person responsible for closing the train doors has to be able to see the entire length of the train. If they can't the train companies need to employ dispatchers. York station would never have been built in the current era!
@@Clivestravelandtrains Go to look at the stations along the Borders railway - they all have large (soulless) estates built close to them - except Gala, which has escaped these rabbit hutches. It is a subsidy for Tory-donating housebuilders.
@@davidhollins870 Thanks for your comment. I did a film about the Borders Railway a couple of years ago. I noticed the adverts all over Shawfair station promoting rural living a few minutes from Edinburgh Waverley, although I didn't comment in my film. I have a clip of Shawfair for possible future use. th-cam.com/video/NApTOIuLjfw/w-d-xo.html
@@nigelkthomas9501 Operators do not like stopping without good reason as it eats up line capacity and extends transit time. It is sad fact that new house occupiers tend to be part of the 88 % who prefer the convenience of independent transport - just look at any new housing estate outside an urban catchment and not actually built next to the station.
It is a very pretty station and lovely to stand at on a warm summers day. After saying that I stopped using it due to cancellations, strikes and no buses. Pretty much if Transpennine are on strike there might as well be no trains. Berwick is served by LNER and Crosscountry, in addition to Transpennine, on a regular basis and it is rare for all to be on strike at once. Also, the bus service to and from Berwick is far more frequent and convenient than to Reston. Pretty much, unless you have a car or live in Reston, it's useless.
Thanks for your comment, which I have a lot of sympathy with. A year ago I tried to use Reston station but ended up only going as far as Dunbar due to both the Trans-Pennine trains on my schedule being cancelled. I posted a film about it, although I acknowledge I could have made it more search-friendly. I ended up making a film about the new platform/footbridge at Dunbar, which wasn't my plan! th-cam.com/video/TS_RyEFze9w/w-d-xo.html
I worked building Reston station. Alot of the cost will be down to the increase of materials that happened at the time of construction post Brexit and covid. But thats not an excuse. Was a good job to work on.
Thanks for your insight. I think another factor pushing up building costs is the aim of both the previous and the present Governments to push construction and house-building to "grow the economy". This can add to costs as it creates a shortage of things like bricks and other building materials, hence prices go up. I was planning to have a new bathroom in 2020 and I've been putting it off since the lock-downs due to high prices - the old one works perfectly well!
that’s the Chinese approach. Build the Infrastructure first then construct the accommodation. £20 for a one off construction cost that could last 200 years sounds like bargain
I think Reston has unfortunately turned out to be white elephant TBH. I haven't used it since 2022. Unfortunately the bus service to Duns has been withdrawn as well. It already has decent bus connections to Berwick which has a much better train service. I think East Linton was much more justified. I like Eyemouth but it's difficult to think of reasons to go very often.
Hello Clive, we have our own white elephant down here in Worcestershire - Bromsgrove station. Trains hurtle through this major town (a fairly new station with FOUR large platforms) on their way to Edinburgh, Cardiff, Manchester etc. and all we have are local WMR services to Birmingham, Lichfield, Worcester and Hereford. It's a disgrace, frankly. p.s. I enjoy your videos, by the way!
Thanks for your comment. I vaguely recall in the days of British Rail, they were reluctant to stop trains at Bromsgrove because it was at the foot of the Lickey Incline. Back then I think it only had one platform. I never used it - maybe I should add Bromsgrove to my Bucket List!
@@Clivestravelandtrains yes you should! 😊😊I made a video on Bromsgrove station (and its failings) last year if you want to see how it looks now. It's further down the line from its original site.
It is certainly a very big, elaborate station for the number of trains that call there and the numbers of people using them. While one can't move the railway to a better location, I do wonder if the much larger village of Ayton wouldn't have been a better location for the station - not least because it is served by more buses going to and from Eyemouth, which as the largest settlement in the area, is presumably one of the main sources of revenue. As it is - and with the very occasional bus service to and frrom Duns now withdrawn and replaced by a Demand-Responsive vehicle covering a much wider area, and that needs to be booked in advance; only the 5-times a day 253 bus route between Berwick and Edinburgh now passes through Reston - and none of the timings connect with any of the trains! If one travels on the mid morning train from Edinburgh that arrives there just after 11, there is a 48-minute wait for a bus to Eyemouth, arriving there around 12.15 pm (and that, I might add, is the best connection on offer!), from which the last northbound bus leaves at 3.10 pm, drops you at Reston around 3.30 - a full hour and 20 minutes before the next Edinburgh train! Hence, because of poor bus connections, it takes 1hr 45+ mins to get from Edinburgh to Eyemouth, where you get less than 3 hours, before a return journey of over 2 hours, to Edinburgh - all but 25 minutes of which is spent waiting in an unheated bus shelter at Reston station... Not exactly an attractive service, is it? Another out-and-back bus service runs at roughly 2-hour intervals between Berwick-Ayton-Eyemouth-Coldingham-St Abbs, also having later northbound departures from Eyemouth. Coldingham is another significantly larger village, with many watersport activities and holiday accommodations at the nearby Coldingham Bay (which some of these buses also serve); while St Abb's is a major tourist destination and walking centre - less than three miles from Reston... You do therefore have to wonder whether the part of this route that is north of Eyemouth couldn't be extended to take in Reston Station - preferably at times that would offer better connections with the train sevices. Okay, so it would require some kind of subsidy, but what is more 'socially-necessary' than a link to your local railway station - that also extends the use of the facility to several hundred more families residing nearby and untold numbers of holidaymakers, daytrippers and hikers? Even if only the last couple of runs of the day could extend to Reston Station... Come on, Borders Council: get the finger out and don't be so institutionalised!
Thanks for your comments and the local insight. I love Eyemouth and would go there by train if the connections were better and if the fares to Reston weren't so high - from my station (Lenzie) it's cheaper to "split-ticket" Lenzie-Dunbar and Dunbar-Reston by quite a lot, though not everyone knows that. It would also save the dreadfull drive round the City By-Pass which gets worse every time I go that way. Someone joked to me that there should be a City By-pass By-pass!
It's definitely very over-engineered. Does it really need that massive footbridge and pair of lifts? Do they realllyyyyy need that many lamposts along the platform? I don't think Reston really needed a station so badly, there's other places in Scotland such as Cove Bay in Aberdeenshire that have been dying for a proper rail link for decades.
The station seems OTT unless some major housing development is expected nearby. Or it's needed in case of Scottish Independence. Just in Scotland it would be ideal for border control ?
Thanks for your comment. Given that the local Conservative & Unionist MP supported the station, it would be ironic if it turned into a post-Independence border control point!
Thanks for your comment. I whizzed through Soham (I think) in the summer, when a fire at Attleborough made me divert via Stowmarket and Cambridge to get from Norwich to Peterborough. We made the four minute connection at Stowmarket even though over 100 people had to file over the station footbridge.
Thanks for your comment. In 2014 Scottish Borders Council and East Lothian Council submitted a joint bid to the Scottish Stations Fund (created by the Scottish Government) to have new stations built at Reston and East Linton. The political composition of Scottish Borders Council is about 50% Conservative & Unionist supported by a number of Independents. Both groups were equally supportive of having a station built at Reston. I also stated in my film that the local Conservative & Unionist MP supported the station. Aside from party politics, what staggers me is why the station is so colossal given the lack of enthusiasm shown by LNER to serve it. The original project bid costed Reston station at £3.2m and yet we ended up with something costing over £20m. This seems typical of engineering projects these days, which balloon out of control, and HS2 and Crossrail show that you can't point the finger of blame at any one political party. I dread to think what would have happened if Boris Johnson's plan to build a bridge between Scotland and Northern Ireland had got off the ground (no pun intended). www.scotborders.gov.uk/downloads/file/525/reston_station_project_-_scottish_stations_fund_bid
Let's be fair - this is more about how staggerlingly expensive it is to built new stations. Some of it is future-proofing and basic spec - if longer trains could call in the future, it'll cost more and be very disruptive on the ECML to lengthen them. There's a preference now for building stations with no curve in the platforms. Lifts are a requirement to allow access for all. etc. etc. It all adds up. I tried out return journeys from both Reston and East Linton last January. I was surprised how small a place Reston is, but I saw more passengers at Reston. A bus did call while I was waiting, and I made use of the EV charging. By the way, national station usage figures are calculated on entries and exits. Presumably the Herald halved the figure, perhaps believing nobody makes a single journey. But to compare, you must use the same standard as everywhere else. A more pertinent question might be why was so much had to be spent to retain Breich station, rather than close it.
Thanks for your comments. "Modern-day standards" (as they often say) simply make everything in life more expensive. I commented in another one of my films that the Department for Transport discourage the construction of new stations on curved track - but some slip through the net like Robroyston just along the road from me. It's to do with safety as the person responsible for closing the train doors has to be able to see the entire length of the train. If they can't the train companies need to employ dispatchers. York station would never have been built in the current era!
Give it time. If/when new housing is built more passengers will use it. A direct service to/from London Kings Cross would be a good idea.
Thanks for your comment. I hadn't thought of that. It makes sense given all the new housing surrounding Dunbar and North Berwick.
@@Clivestravelandtrains Go to look at the stations along the Borders railway - they all have large (soulless) estates built close to them - except Gala, which has escaped these rabbit hutches. It is a subsidy for Tory-donating housebuilders.
@@davidhollins870 Thanks for your comment. I did a film about the Borders Railway a couple of years ago. I noticed the adverts all over Shawfair station promoting rural living a few minutes from Edinburgh Waverley, although I didn't comment in my film. I have a clip of Shawfair for possible future use. th-cam.com/video/NApTOIuLjfw/w-d-xo.html
@@nigelkthomas9501 Operators do not like stopping without good reason as it eats up line capacity and extends transit time. It is sad fact that new house occupiers tend to be part of the 88 % who prefer the convenience of independent transport - just look at any new housing estate outside an urban catchment and not actually built next to the station.
@@Clivestravelandtrains just for the Local MP's to get easy 1st class travel to London.
It is a very pretty station and lovely to stand at on a warm summers day. After saying that I stopped using it due to cancellations, strikes and no buses. Pretty much if Transpennine are on strike there might as well be no trains. Berwick is served by LNER and Crosscountry, in addition to Transpennine, on a regular basis and it is rare for all to be on strike at once. Also, the bus service to and from Berwick is far more frequent and convenient than to Reston. Pretty much, unless you have a car or live in Reston, it's useless.
Thanks for your comment, which I have a lot of sympathy with. A year ago I tried to use Reston station but ended up only going as far as Dunbar due to both the Trans-Pennine trains on my schedule being cancelled. I posted a film about it, although I acknowledge I could have made it more search-friendly. I ended up making a film about the new platform/footbridge at Dunbar, which wasn't my plan! th-cam.com/video/TS_RyEFze9w/w-d-xo.html
I worked building Reston station. Alot of the cost will be down to the increase of materials that happened at the time of construction post Brexit and covid. But thats not an excuse. Was a good job to work on.
Thanks for your insight. I think another factor pushing up building costs is the aim of both the previous and the present Governments to push construction and house-building to "grow the economy". This can add to costs as it creates a shortage of things like bricks and other building materials, hence prices go up. I was planning to have a new bathroom in 2020 and I've been putting it off since the lock-downs due to high prices - the old one works perfectly well!
Apparently, it was built ahead of a major housing construction project. I think?
that’s the Chinese approach. Build the Infrastructure first then construct the accommodation. £20 for a one off construction cost that could last 200 years sounds like bargain
I think Reston has unfortunately turned out to be white elephant TBH. I haven't used it since 2022. Unfortunately the bus service to Duns has been withdrawn as well.
It already has decent bus connections to Berwick which has a much better train service. I think East Linton was much more justified. I like Eyemouth but it's difficult to think of reasons to go very often.
Thanks for your comment.
Hello Clive, we have our own white elephant down here in Worcestershire - Bromsgrove station. Trains hurtle through this major town (a fairly new station with FOUR large platforms) on their way to Edinburgh, Cardiff, Manchester etc. and all we have are local WMR services to Birmingham, Lichfield, Worcester and Hereford. It's a disgrace, frankly. p.s. I enjoy your videos, by the way!
Thanks for your comment. I vaguely recall in the days of British Rail, they were reluctant to stop trains at Bromsgrove because it was at the foot of the Lickey Incline. Back then I think it only had one platform. I never used it - maybe I should add Bromsgrove to my Bucket List!
@@Clivestravelandtrains yes you should! 😊😊I made a video on Bromsgrove station (and its failings) last year if you want to see how it looks now. It's further down the line from its original site.
It is certainly a very big, elaborate station for the number of trains that call there and the numbers of people using them. While one can't move the railway to a better location, I do wonder if the much larger village of Ayton wouldn't have been a better location for the station - not least because it is served by more buses going to and from Eyemouth, which as the largest settlement in the area, is presumably one of the main sources of revenue. As it is - and with the very occasional bus service to and frrom Duns now withdrawn and replaced by a Demand-Responsive vehicle covering a much wider area, and that needs to be booked in advance; only the 5-times a day 253 bus route between Berwick and Edinburgh now passes through Reston - and none of the timings connect with any of the trains! If one travels on the mid morning train from Edinburgh that arrives there just after 11, there is a 48-minute wait for a bus to Eyemouth, arriving there around 12.15 pm (and that, I might add, is the best connection on offer!), from which the last northbound bus leaves at 3.10 pm, drops you at Reston around 3.30 - a full hour and 20 minutes before the next Edinburgh train! Hence, because of poor bus connections, it takes 1hr 45+ mins to get from Edinburgh to Eyemouth, where you get less than 3 hours, before a return journey of over 2 hours, to Edinburgh - all but 25 minutes of which is spent waiting in an unheated bus shelter at Reston station... Not exactly an attractive service, is it?
Another out-and-back bus service runs at roughly 2-hour intervals between Berwick-Ayton-Eyemouth-Coldingham-St Abbs, also having later northbound departures from Eyemouth. Coldingham is another significantly larger village, with many watersport activities and holiday accommodations at the nearby Coldingham Bay (which some of these buses also serve); while St Abb's is a major tourist destination and walking centre - less than three miles from Reston... You do therefore have to wonder whether the part of this route that is north of Eyemouth couldn't be extended to take in Reston Station - preferably at times that would offer better connections with the train sevices. Okay, so it would require some kind of subsidy, but what is more 'socially-necessary' than a link to your local railway station - that also extends the use of the facility to several hundred more families residing nearby and untold numbers of holidaymakers, daytrippers and hikers? Even if only the last couple of runs of the day could extend to Reston Station... Come on, Borders Council: get the finger out and don't be so institutionalised!
Thanks for your comments and the local insight. I love Eyemouth and would go there by train if the connections were better and if the fares to Reston weren't so high - from my station (Lenzie) it's cheaper to "split-ticket" Lenzie-Dunbar and Dunbar-Reston by quite a lot, though not everyone knows that. It would also save the dreadfull drive round the City By-Pass which gets worse every time I go that way. Someone joked to me that there should be a City By-pass By-pass!
It's definitely very over-engineered. Does it really need that massive footbridge and pair of lifts? Do they realllyyyyy need that many lamposts along the platform? I don't think Reston really needed a station so badly, there's other places in Scotland such as Cove Bay in Aberdeenshire that have been dying for a proper rail link for decades.
Thanks for your comment. New stations are becoming more expensive to build which means we get fewer stations for the money available. Sad.
The station seems OTT unless some major housing development is expected nearby. Or it's needed in case of Scottish Independence. Just in Scotland it would be ideal for border control ?
Thanks for your comment. Given that the local Conservative & Unionist MP supported the station, it would be ironic if it turned into a post-Independence border control point!
Too many cancellations for me to use it
Thanks for your comment. On my first visit two years ago most of the trains were cancelled.
How dare we invest in infra structure which will serve communities in the future as well as giving some transport options right now. Sit down.
Thanks for your comment. Only time will tell if this was a good investment.
Scottish govt were keen on it. Pork barrel politics? Now try Soham on a single line outside Ely.
Thanks for your comment. I whizzed through Soham (I think) in the summer, when a fire at Attleborough made me divert via Stowmarket and Cambridge to get from Norwich to Peterborough. We made the four minute connection at Stowmarket even though over 100 people had to file over the station footbridge.
More of my money squandered by the SNP. Anything to virtue signal
Thanks for your comment. In 2014 Scottish Borders Council and East Lothian Council submitted a joint bid to the Scottish Stations Fund (created by the Scottish Government) to have new stations built at Reston and East Linton. The political composition of Scottish Borders Council is about 50% Conservative & Unionist supported by a number of Independents. Both groups were equally supportive of having a station built at Reston. I also stated in my film that the local Conservative & Unionist MP supported the station.
Aside from party politics, what staggers me is why the station is so colossal given the lack of enthusiasm shown by LNER to serve it. The original project bid costed Reston station at £3.2m and yet we ended up with something costing over £20m. This seems typical of engineering projects these days, which balloon out of control, and HS2 and Crossrail show that you can't point the finger of blame at any one political party. I dread to think what would have happened if Boris Johnson's plan to build a bridge between Scotland and Northern Ireland had got off the ground (no pun intended).
www.scotborders.gov.uk/downloads/file/525/reston_station_project_-_scottish_stations_fund_bid