bud_kingofbeers

... apart from the new station The funny thing is, when you do the sums, 10 passengers per train from the airport would actually make it viable. In what way are the improvements to the Paisley route a good idea (without the fully project)? There will be a third track installed which will marginally increase capacity between Glasgow and Paisley, but will globally have no increase to west coast routes as after Arkleston the capacity will still be the same as ever(ie just because there could, in theory be more trains between Glasgow and Paisley, this is not actually possible as there is nowhere for these "extra" trains to go once they reach Paisley from Glasgow unless ofcourse they do a U turn somewhere around barshaw golf course)

Renfrewshire benefit would be that every single person going to the airport from the west (ie Gourock, Ardrossan, Ayr, Largs, Stranrar....) would have to change trains at Gilmour St, but to be honest you have to look at the bigger picture, rather just concentrating on the benefit to Paisley. Regarding the money, what they fail to mention is that the Scottish government was not putting up all the funding. BAA had recently agreed to pay the full cost for the new station at the airport and network rail was putting up approx £190M. How can you say its ridiculous to spend £195M before a single track is laid when you obviously don't know how much work has actually been done over the last 5 years? Its not purely a case of laying 1 mile of new track, the full network infrastructure had to be upgraded, between Glasgow and Paisley, which has been complete. Go away and find out what the money has been spent on, then come back and make that statement again.

£200M saved, but £195M spent already with only a new signaling system and some new rolling stock to show for it. Great thinking to scrap a project more than half way through completion. This is the equivalent of letting the Edinburgh tram scheme continue to dig up Princesses St for the next 6 months, then pull the plug on the whole idea. This is a kick in the baws to Renfrewshire, Glasgow and South Lanarkshire councils who are also funding partners and have already invested vast sums of money in the project with no return.

They does indeed mean the SNP (and anyone who helps them achieve a majority). Tuition fees were only abolished approx 18 months ago. i wouldn't call that long standing. West minister have not cut the Scottish Government budget, although it may go down in real terms, that is the same throughout the UK. If the SNP believe they need more money, they could always raise council tax for those who can afford it. I didn't suggest that school meals and tuition fees would pay for GARL, but I certainly wouldn't say they are essential, worthwhile ways of spending money. These examples also show the Scottish Government's mentality on how to spend their budget.

I applaud your well thought out response. My issue isn't that they are cutting services. Its the question do you believe that the services that are being cut (ie the GARL, education and NHS etc) are not as essential as free school meals and no university tuition fees? Or is it a case of they aren't brave enough to admit they made a mistake and they now can't afford what they promised in their manifesto, so instead they will cut any other service they can, just to fund their manifesto pledges, while blaming other people for a lack of cash.

There will be lots of "it wasnae us" statements coming out in the coming weeks. But, to be fair to SPT, the project was taken out of their hands last year.

You obviously have no concept of the work that goes into such projects. If you bothered to read the thousands of pages found here, as compiled by Fauber Mansell, you might start to understand the process which took place. Don't make statements about processes you know jack all about. The SNP have admitted they scrapped the scheme not because its costs were spilling out of control, but because they need the money to fund other services.

Under the rail link, every single train was due to stop at Gilmour street to accommodate those coming to the airport from the West who would have had to change train. This would have meant 16 trains an hour from Gilmour St to Central and vice versa at peak times (ie a train every 4mins). Now that the rail link is cancelled, there is no way that volume of traffic will pass through Paisley, there certainly isn't enough demand or track capacity beyond Paisley (to the west).

Correct, the third line to the arkleston junction is still going ahead and the new trains will be delivered. But, this is still a waste of money as the extra track capacity is no longer required, as there will be no large scale rise in commuters using the corridor.

So you took an article which already misrepresented the situation, added more made up stuff and came up with shite? Architecture Scotland and Prospect are as accurate as The Sun on most subjects and anyway, what would architects know about a major civil engineering contract apart from the drawing pretty pictures? The scheme was widely know in the industry to be THE BEST and indeed THE ONLY feasible route. Do you not think all other corridors were considered and ruled out for one reason or another? The blame lies solely in one Corner, the SNP's. Introduce free primary school meals for those who can afford them, freeze council tax for the 3rd year in succession, introduce free university tuition fees for people who can afford them (at some point in the future)......... Great timing as well, with the new depot being constructed at the moment, work at Glasgow central already started for the 2 new platforms, new trains being built just now, to arrive next year, work on hillington bridge underway for 3rd track, work on underground services diversions underway at the airport and new football pitches constructed all over renfrewshire.

What a load of made up rubbish. There was an extremely extensive feasibility study carried out by one of the largest and highly regarded consulting engineering firms in the UK, where four proposals for the location of the terminus at the airport and the route taken from the racecourse to said terminus were drawn up. The feasibility study concluded that the route towards the fuel depot would be the most appropriate. And for the record, this all took place more than 3 years ago.

Typical scenario - Belhaven give the place a (cheap and nesty) refurb then get someone to take the place on with short term lease. It looks horrible, and won't last long!

Over the last 2/3 days i've been finding it dif to get on. Been down for long periods of time as well.

From past experience, i would never go back to the carphone warehouse again. It took me six months for them to refund me back money they owed me, meanwhile, i had to refuse to pay any bills until they did refund me. Despite being disconnected several times, i screwed the bastards and got a few months for free at the end of it. I wouldn't touch the deal.