It's amazing that even in these times when most people realise that it is important to persuade travellers to use the train whenever possible, rather than automatically driving, the press often falls back on well-worn tropes of criticising, or laughing at, the rail system, without making the obvious points about how it could be fixed.
Apparently this kind of commentary doesn't extend to coverage of road projects. A typical press feature on that subject will be campaigning to get vast amounts of the transport budget spent on dualling existing roads using hyperbole and dubious statistics to try and force the government to act.
If only newspaper editors would step back from thoughtlessly following a kind of 'herd mentality' and actually analyse the needs and sensible solutions to both road and rail questions.
A classic pointless piece about delays on the Inverness-Aberdeen railway was published in the Press and Journal on 2 November. It reeled off a load of figures for delays and cancellations with no attempt to explain why these occur and what needs to be done about it. Reading this prompted a response which, to its credit, the P&J did print:
Sir:- "715 train journeys connecting cities hit snags in a year" (P&J 02 Nov 24) is one of the most pointless articles I've read in a long time. It would have had a purpose if it had attempted to explain why rail delays happen, and what can be done to avoid them.
All three Highland lines radiating from Inverness have the same problem - they are mostly single track with a few passing places. This situation amplifies any delay and virtually guarantees that the lateness of one train will be passed on to trains coming in the opposite direction which languish in the passing loops, becoming late themselves.
It's not acceptable to allow politicians to continue to ignore this situation when Scottish Government policy is to achieve major modal shift away from roads.
It's high time the Press and Journal used its considerable transport campaigning prowess, as it has done with the A9 dualling, to highlight the issue of single track inter-city and long-distance railways to persuade the government to solve the problem.
Ian Budd - Convener, Friends of the Far North Line
Newspaper articles moaning about statistics produces nothing, except a general perception that railways don't work. The Scottish Government needs to be convinced to act on the lack of infrastructure which bedevils all the railway routes out of Inverness. The government has allowed them to languish as mostly single-track for far too long.
In the last decade some serious money has been spent on Stage 1 of Inverness-Aberdeen improvements - no sign of further stages as yet - and a small amount of money was spent on improving two passing loops on the Highland Main Line, but to save money the original plans for that were watered down so that full-length freight trains still cannot pass at these points.
It would be wonderful to see newspapers taking up the case for Highland rail investment with the same vigour and passion they have shown for dualling the two major roads - instead of just complaining.
An exception to those observations is the Inverness Courier, which does take the trouble to find out why there are problems and to suggest solutions.
This paper, and its stablemates at Highland News & Media, have been particularly supportive of our attempts to achieve some movement towards investment in the Far North Line. Here is an excerpt from an article entitled Vital rail loop in 'limbo' by Philip Murray which appeared on 27 September:
Stalled progress on a vital new passing loop which would dramatically improve train reliability on the Far North and Kyle lines has been criticised by rail campaigners.
Plans for a new passing loop at Delmore, west of Inverness, emerged last year, raising hopes that the long campaign for such an improvement might be nearing an end. At present there is no way for trains to pass each other between Muir of Ord and Inverness, meaning that a single delayed train can lead to a domino effect that causes knock-on timetable disruption for it and other services.
Indeed, that very scenario played out on Thursday last week, when the late running 6:18 Wick to Inverness service - which was only 18 minutes behind schedule at Conon Bridge - was then forced to wait at Muir of Ord for a gap in traffic to proceed on to the Highland capital.
It did not leave the Muir of Ord platform until 11:21 - one hour and six minutes after it was scheduled to depart.
But despite these problems and long-running calls for a fix, almost two decades have now passed since the Friends of the Far North Line and business leaders first began calling for a passing loop between Beauly and Inverness to resolve this notorious bottleneck.
And with the project now seemingly stuck in limbo while it waits on budget approval, fed up campaigners have drawn attention to the stark contrast between the project's glacial progress and the swift creation of the line by the Victorians.
Mr Murray goes on to quote from the Convener's Report in the September 2024 edition of Far North Express which lamented the 19 years we've been waiting for a short length of double-track to allow trains to pass each other, and contrasted that with the mere three years it took the Sutherland & Caithness Railway to construct 67 route miles of railway and 14 new stations in the 1870s.
The article concluded with Rhoda Grant's parliamentary question about the loop and Fiona Hyslop's reply, which can be read on our Parliamentary Questions page.
This printout from the On Time Trains website shows in graphic detail what happened to the 06:18 mentioned in the article.
It ran well from Wick and arrived at Lairg 2 minutes early. It then had to wait for the 07:00 from Inverness to pass, which arrived at Lairg 9 mins late. The 06:18 left Lairg 10 mins late which extended to 16 mins late leaving Tain and 18 late leaving Invergordon (for unknown reasons). It arrived at Muir of Ord, the last crossing place, 17 mins late, so was held for 50 minutes to allow 10:41 Wick and 10:56 Kyle to pass. When it was eventually released the driver managed to cut 2 mins off the last section's timing and arrived 64 mins late at Inverness.
Your convener was not alone in being disappointed by the Press and Journal article.
Richard Ardern, until recently a FoFNL committee member, is a frequent contributor to the various letter columns. The P&J published his letter too:
Sir, - Your correspondent, Alberto Lejarraga, has obtained some detailed statistics on train punctuality between Aberdeen and Inverness (P&J, November 2). It would be helpful to state what is the cause of these delays. One major factor is the lack of track capacity due to most of the line being single track in nature. Government promised major improvements in 2008 but only phase one was completed. This gave us the splendid dual track between Aberdeen and Inverurie and the greatly-improved Forres station and long loop. More recently, we now have a useful passing loop at Inverness Airport.
A line is only as good as its weakest link. Until the 1960s it was double track all the way from Aberdeen to Keith and there were many more passing loops between there and Inverness. The weakest link is now the 18 miles between Keith and Elgin which used to have three loops and takes 20 minutes to complete. If two trains arrive simultaneously at each end, one or both will go forward 20 minutes late depending on which is given priority.
One solution is to reinstate the former loop at Orton near the Spey Bridge. It was part of the 2008 proposals, and users continue to campaign for this. When freight trains have to be diverted onto this line due to blockages south of Aberdeen, passenger trains have to be cancelled. There is not enough capacity.
The government knows this, but the 2008 money is still to be forthcoming.
ScotRail is doing its best, but urgently needs more track capacity which would also give the hourly service frequency that was spoken about in 2008.
RJ Ardern, Inverness.