... finds little to make him optimistic about 2024, try as he might. The world does not have its woes to seek, and it's hard to see where alleviations may come from. Against such a background the travails of the railway seem of little consequence, but perhaps that makes them more tractable.

The last issue of RAIL for 2023, blessed editorially like all year-end publications with hopes for 2024, has as one of its wishes: "If you come from England, resolve to look and learn from Scotland's attitude towards rail's potential."

Well, up to a point, Lord Copper^*. It's generally true that up here we have better ideas about what the railway should look like in, say, 15 years. After all, we have - enshrined in law - plans for electrification of most services and the elimination of most polluting traction. Scotland's attitude to rail's potential is not in doubt.

However Scotland's ability to do much about it is in severe doubt. The Budget announced a few days before Christmas shows an £80 million cut in rail spending alongside a £230 million increase in spending on roads. No-one can doubt that the state of the roads is dire, but Pandora's gut feeling is that precious few potholes will be filled from this largesse. Loud voices continue to badger the Scottish Government to dual the A9, and each of these voices has a vote. Motorists seem to be the only lobby which genuinely frightens Ministers: one has only to remember the great cave-in in Blair's first term when tractors blocked the M6 in protest against a fairly modest rise in duty: duty which has been frozen in most years since. The UK Treasury has still not found a way to fill the revenue gap caused by the increasing number of motorists who no longer buy petrol - further evidence of the fear of electoral punishment by the irate motorist.

But every motorist relies on rail. His morning cornflakes come on a train, as do many of the things he consumes daily. Governments are all agreed that getting lorries off the road is a vital part of reducing carbon emissions; Governments are all agreed that taxing them off the road isn't electorally very clever; Governments are all agreed that the next election - whenever it's due - focuses the mind more than the long term; Governments build roads, not railways.

We should not only encourage our English cousins to look at our attitude towards rail's potential; we should grieve that, despite it, our ability to deliver seems to be diminishing with every month that passes. And by the way, the A9 has not killed a single motorist. Careless motorists have done that.

^*Scoop, E. Waugh