Underneath!

On Wednesday I travelled across our parish under the ground!

I felt like I was on Thunderbirds, travelling through the ground in the Mole, as a member of International Rescue - then I remembered that I was sitting on the train travelling to Glasgow!

I had often heard of the Winchburgh rail tunnel, usually related to some flooding incident. I noticed that the water level in the old clay pit at the North end of the tunnel is higher than the adjacent rail line and tunnel floor. So when the clay pit overflows - the tunnel often gets flooded. Maybe they have a drainage system in place to prevent that now, for I haven't heard of any flooding incidents for a while.

It was a strange feeling, rapidly approaching Winchburgh, the place where I work, sinking down into the ground as we travelled along the cutting, knowing that the tunnel lay up ahead, and soon we would be boring through the ground at high velocity!

We travelled over the Viaduct, and then briefly alongside the canal, before Niddry Castle appeared off to the right, in front of the infamous Red Shale Bings of Old Winchburgh, to quote a song I heard recently!

Then it was into the dark tunnel, underneath the former shale miners cottages, and then under the main road, which was formerly the main A9 road from Edinburgh to Stirling and the North of Scotland.

The tunnel follows the track of the Station Road, down to the disused Winchburgh Station, and the new houses behind it, with the old platforms beside the tracks down in the cutting.

It's a shame that these old village stations are all disused now. We passed another one in Philpstoun just a few miles up the track. There is no time to stop every few minutes along the line. So the train just flies past, hurrying on its way - determined to stick to its schedule.

We were 8 minutes late arriving into Glasgow due to a signalling problem, having only stopped once at Haymarket in Edinburgh, and at Linlithgow, Falkirk, and Croy, before reaching Glasgow.

It seems like a wasted opportunity. The track is sitting there, going through many communities, but not stopping. Surely there would be a good case for a slow train during the off-peak time, that stopped to pick up and set down at all these small places.

Normally a train leaves every 15 minutes. But if the slow train left immediately after a fast train, and the next 15-minute train departure was omitted, then the slow train would have 90 minutes to get to Glasgow, instead of the usual hour.

Of course, it's easier to run all the trains at the same breakneck speed all day. But it's not so efficient. People take their cars, or a taxi, when there are trains running anyway.

South Gyle and Edinburgh Park are two new stations in West Edinburgh that opened in the last few years. Let's get some of the old station platforms out of retirement and back into use again.

We 've been travelling in the dark ages for too long. It's time we brought a breath of fresh air and light into our thinking about transport and made better use of the resources we already have.

The Scottish Government has committed to electrification of Scotland's railways.

Let's make sure that we get all these old stations opened up too, so that we make maximum use of the tracks, instead of seeing them only as transport links between our cities and large towns.