Railways are a service, not a business. Of course they must be 'business-like' in the way they are run, but one would hope that that would go without saying.

Railways cost a lot of money, but provide huge value in terms of quality of life and in supporting business activities.

Unfortunately, the railways in the Highlands, including the Far North Line, have fallen far behind. They are far too slow and are often made unreliable by the lack of passing loops. The Highlands area is a classic example of how railways are not, and never were, a business proposition. In Victorian times there was little enthusiasm for state provision of anything and we therefore owe a great debt to the railway entrepreneurs who managed to build at least basic railways in the area. The Highland railway knew very well what it would have liked to have built, but it couldn't afford it. We're often being told how the UK is one of the richest countries in the world, yet we apparently still can't (or won't) afford it.

Governments responsible for large operations, such as the railways, seem scared of making, and standing by, essential decisions about what to provide, preferring to take the easy option of reducing everything to a, possibly spurious, "value for money" test. This is encouraged by the accountancy mentality in government where everything is broken down into small units and then individually assessed for its financial performance. As David Spaven points out many times in Scotland's Lost Branch Lines, this can lead to huge errors.

It seems that an accountant's view cannot assimilate the bigger picture. The small decisions made on the grounds of a particular project not being 'value for money' are often to the detriment of the whole system.

FoFNL's much-missed colleague, Bob Barnes-Watts, was forever saying "JDI! - Just Do It" for rail investment in works which are obviously necessary. Sadly, instead of JDI we have STPR2 etc, etc - reports which cost millions and produce generalised conclusions which planners should already know instinctively. As First Minister, John Swinney MSP said in a speech in May, "I will demand from my government more concrete actions and fewer strategy documents."

We have a railway in the North of Scotland which could do so much better if the absolute basics were attended to. It is obvious that attracting passengers requires two of these 'basics' - the trains must run as advertised all the time, including arriving on time; and they must not take too long to get from A to B.

The Far North Line fails both these basic tests. FoFNL is well aware of, and often sympathetic to, the operational reasons. Passengers, especially potential passengers, are not the least bit interested in the reasons.