In 2023 FoFNL started to look for a way to sponsor some useful research by linking up with a university. Sharing the idea with Catherine Hall, Network Rail's Head of Strategic Planning, Scotland, a plan was drawn up to have some field research done to gather opinions from a wide range of people who could use the Far North Line, but choose not to.

The Department of Marketing at Strathclyde University seemed the best fit and our approach was welcomed by Professor Beverly Wagner and Dr Andrew Davis. A discussion group was formed, with the inclusion of Nicola Curran, ScotRail's Head of Commercial Revenue.

We established the requirements and briefed the university staff on the line's history and shortcomings.

Professor Wagner and Dr Davis set about the task, which included consulting appropriate stakeholders, including local communities, businesses and tourist bodies; conducting in-depth interviews with regular, infrequent, and non-users of the FNL to understand their travel motivations and barriers to travel; and field research to account for real-time behaviour, and researcher observations to understand the structure of the FNL.

The work was completed in two stages: desk research and phone interviews (April-May 2024); and field research including personal diaries and face-to-face interviews (August-September 2024).

In November the university produced its final report which is available on our website.

No-one expected a magical 'silver bullet' to be conjured up by this investigation. What we have is simultaneously very encouraging and familiarly depressing - encouraging because what came through very clearly was the recognition by travellers, non-travellers and the community at large of the value of the railway, despite its inevitably extended journey times; depressing because, as expected, the barriers to travel on the line are mostly fixable given the investment the Scottish Government is apparently not prepared to authorise.

Our hope is that this report, along with the Far North Line Review Team's recommendations of 2019, which have not been fully realised, will spur decision makers to think hard about how far behind being a fully-functional, efficient, reliable railway the FNL has fallen.

In Victorian times, when a clear need was identified it was someone's responsibility to have that attended to (only of course if the private enterprise railway company concerned had any money available). Today's attitude to capital projects, with the constant fear of being accused of mis-spending public money, has resulted in a risk-averse morass of procedures, so that every project, even the installation of an essential passing loop, has to go through a complicated, time consuming, expensive process to attempt to produce a 'business case'.

Checking the Scottish Government's current advice on how to proceed with this (Guidance on the Development of Business Cases in Transport Scotland - 2015) does uncover the stated need to "optimise value for money in terms of economic, social and environmental benefit". In parts of Scotland with far fewer residents this is the key. The Fairer Scotland Duty, which is Part 1 of the Equality Act 2010, came into force in 2018 and requires public sector bodies to "actively consider how they can reduce inequalities of outcome caused by socio-economic disadvantage, when making strategic decisions".

Residents of Caithness and points south surely have as much right to a reliable, regular and sensibly frequent train service as those of the Central Belt.

The report also identifies possibilities of linking the FNL with activities, such as the Northern Pilgrim's Way, raising awareness of ways the line can be used. This is something which our colleagues at the newly-formed Far North Line Community Rail Partnership are well aware of. The Strathclyde University team describes such linkages as "low-hanging fruit" and is willing to be part of discussions in the future which could involve FoFNL, FNLCRP and, for example, ScotRail's Tourism Manager.