S5M-01567 Adopt a Station

The Deputy Presiding Officer (Linda Fabiani): The final item of business today is a members’ business debate on motion S5M-01567, in the name of Christine Grahame, on the adopt-a-station programme. The debate will be concluded without any question being put.

Motion debated,

That the Parliament notes what it considers the resounding success of the return of the Borders Railway; recognises the economic potential already being realised, and congratulates communities in Gorebridge, Newtongrange, Stow, Galashiels, Tweedbank, Eskbank and also Shawfair, which is adopting its local station with support from ScotRail, which has improved the appearance of the station with planting, flower tubs and hanging baskets and which it considers is a sure sign of how much the railway means to these communities and how proud they are of its return, and congratulates the volunteers who are involved in Adopt a Station projects throughout Scotland, enhancing the rail journey experience for both tourists and commuters.

17:05
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17:24

Stewart Stevenson (Banffshire and Buchan Coast) (SNP):

I thank Christine Grahame for the opportunity to discuss the railways, which is one of my favourite topics.

I am a former transport minister and I am president of the Scottish Association for Public Transport, which was founded because of the closure of the Borders railway. I am also honorary vice-president for Railfuture UK. The only thing that I lack in my railway credentials is a railway in my constituency, but I note that my ScotRail saltire card does not expire until 2031, so there is still time to remedy that, if I might gently nudge the minister on the matter of getting a railway into my constituency at some future date within the currency of my card.

I join others in congratulating the many volunteers and ScotRail on opening its stations to such a programme. Their joint efforts in the adopt-a-station programme enhance our railways, cheer up travellers and create a talking point as we stand on platforms.

I travelled on the Borders railway the first Sunday after it opened, all the way down to Tweedbank, where I had a delightful lunch and then came back. I have not yet got off at any of the other stations, although I am sure that, as Christine Grahame told us, the stations are improving and being enhanced. It is a spectacular line that is the longest new piece of railway in over a century. As is almost invariably the case with new openings, usage levels are substantially ahead of what the model said. Therefore, when the model says that taking a line from Dyce up to Ellon might not be that great, we should remember that the model has lied to us pretty regularly on a whole series of things. We have now had 1 million people on the Borders railway, and we could do something similar in the north-east. Of course, the economic benefits are substantial. Interestingly, on the Borders railway, end-to-end journeys appear to be a much bigger proportion of journeys than was anticipated.

It was interesting to hear Christine Grahame talk about the need to get a plaque in every station. Become transport minister, and that becomes easy. I have got plaques on the west platform of Queen Street station—I will check that it is still there after the recent refurbishment—and on Laurencekirk, Elgin, Markinch, and Alloa stations. I think, although I cannot be quite certain, that there is also one at Bathgate.

Stations are places of happy memories for me. The porter at Cupar railway station where I lived was Stanislaw Skrodski, who had been a captain in the Polish cavalry and who stayed in Cupar after the war. He had great skill with his welding kit. Given the rather imperfect old cars that my friends and I had, we used to rely on him and we went to the station to get welding done.

My earliest railway journey that I remember was from Benderloch to Oban when I was taken to hospital because I had sunstroke—1956 was a very warm year and railways were very important in my life. They are also very important in the matter of climate change. In 2015, 72 per cent of our transport emissions were from road transport, while 1.3 per cent of transport emissions were from rail.

Rural communities in particular, such as those that are supported by the opening of the Borders railway, get a particular value from railways, because they are further away from the places that people wish to travel to. A railway dramatically opens up those areas. I am sure that there is still much more potential to be opened up from the Borders railway.

On the subject of libraries in railway stations, on the line down to Kyle of Lochalsh, many of the stops are request stops and have little libraries, and one actually has a games room. There are not a lot of trains, so if someone misses one, they will be there for several hours, but they can play dice or poker in the games room. People can do many different things in the rooms of some of those little stations. Stations are loved throughout Scotland. I love the Borders railway, but I would love a railway line to Buchan even more.

17:28