Stirling-Alloa-Kincardine debate

[David Marsh]

Newsgroups: uk.railway,free.uk.scotland.transport-railways

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Alan Norris wrote in uk.railway
about: Re: Stirling-Alloa-Kincardine debate

I've also heard rumblings about reopening Greenloaning Station as a
park and ride and using this as the terminus instead of Dunblane.
Dunblane suffers from severe car parking problems because of the
number of people who use it to commute to Glasgow and Edinburgh.

Interesting..
There isn't an awful lot sizable between Dunblane and Perth except
Auchterarder, and, further afield, Crieff. I'm a little surprised to hear
that there is significant use of Dunblane station outwith the town and
surrounds itself. I'd have thought that any would-be passengers from
further north would have used Gleneagles instead, but off the top of my
head, I doubt it has such a good service, perhaps one train an hour to
Glasgow (and the occasional to Edinburgh) at best?

If a station were to be opened at Greenloaning, would it be possible for
the train to reach there and start to head back in time to maintain the
current level of service? I suspect that by extending the distance, at
least one extra train would be required otherwise the train wouldn't be
able to make it back in time to form the next outgoing service.

It would also be useful to have a station at Blackford, and perhaps also
Auchterarder (although Gleneagles sort of serves that). Was there ever a
station for Auchterarder itself? It does seem surprising that the line
skipped the town altogether.

[David Marsh]

Newsgroups: uk.railway,free.uk.scotland.transport-railways

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Alan Norris wrote in uk.railway
about: Re: Stirling-Alloa-Kincardine debate

Tne fact that there's no turnback siding at Dunblane doesn't help,
especially as they only seem prepared to use the other face of the island
platform for the last service in the evening. Greenloaning and Blackford
have track layouts that are much better suited to the job.

The loop at Dunblane is used every hour - the terminating service from
Newcraighall at about 5 past the hour is looped to allow a
Glasgow-Aberdeen express to pass at about 15 past.
There is talk of resignalling Dunblane so that terminating services
can use the same platform for the return service.

That would then make the main departure platform the 'wrong side' from
the ticket office. But since it's barely even open nowadays, that's
perhaps not much loss. Waiting facilities on the island platform would
need to be improved significantly, though.

This would remove
the need for trains to draw past the trailing crossover and then cross
over to the up line platform which is the only one signalled for
departures in the Stirling direction. Alterations would require a new
trailing crossover at the Stirling end plus associated signals.

Would that be more or less hassle/expense than relaying a couple of
hundred metres of track on the stub of the Callander branch for trains
to pull in there to turnback?