Edinburgh Airport Rail Link

Edinburgh Airport railway station was part of the Edinburgh Airport Rail Link (EARL), an abandoned proposal to build a rail link to Edinburgh Airport, Scotland. The EARL project received Royal Assent on 19 April 2007. [cite news
title = EARL Bill Awarded Royal Assent
publisher = EARL News
url = http://www.earlproject.com/news/items/20070419.php
date = 2007-04-19
accessdate = 2007-10-02 ] It was cancelled in September 2007, on grounds of cost.

The airport station was planned to open in 2011 and would have been located beneath the terminal building. A tunnel was to have been constructed to take trains underneath the main runway. [http://www.earlproject.com/plan.php Map of the proposed rail links] ] The Edinburgh Airport Rail Link would have allowed direct rail travel to and from the airport from Scotland’s main towns and cities. New, faster trains would have been expected to minimise any extra journey time created by the additional stop.

Proposed services

Though the exact timetable had not been finalised, the following service pattern was expected to have been implemented:

*Edinburgh-Glasgow - 2 trains per hour
*Edinburgh-Dunblane - 2 trains per hour
*Fife Circle - 2 trains per hour
*Edinburgh-Aberdeen - 1 train per hour
*Edinburgh-Perth & Inverness - 1 train per hour

It was anticipated that services would have been provided by First ScotRail, GNER and Virgin Trains.

Cancellation

The EARL project was cancelled in September 2007 by the Scottish Government in favour of a cheaper proposal, based on an interchange to the planned Edinburgh tram service at a new railway station at Gogar (see the [http://www.tramtime.com/popup/line2.html map of the proposed airport tram route] ). [cite news
title = It's £30m down the drain
publisher = The Scotsman
url = http://news.scotsman.com/topics.cfm?tid=607&id=1546642007
accessdate = 2007-10-02 ]

While the former Labour and Liberal Democrat coalition and the Scottish Conservatives were in favour of the link, the newly elected SNP minority government decided to cancel the project. Following a vote in the Scottish Parliament on 27 June 2007, it had been agreed to retain the Edinburgh tram project effectively at the cost of abandoning the airport rail link. [cite news
title = Climbdown after transport defeat
publisher = BBC News
url = http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/edinburgh_and_east/6243158.stm
date = 2007-06-27
accessdate = 2007-10-02 ] John Swinney MSP, the Cabinet Secretary for Finance in the Scottish Government, warned that the full underground EARL project would probably be scrapped in favour of the electrification of the Glasgow-Edinburgh Main Line.

The project was criticised for its high costs.

A cheaper surface alternative, such as an airport station on the existing Edinburgh to Aberdeen Line, may yet be built. [ [http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/edinburgh_and_east/6448319.stm MSPs back new airport rail link] ]

ee also

*Transport in Edinburgh
*Edinburgh Tram Network
*Edinburgh Airport

References

External links

* [http://www.earlproject.com/ Edinburgh Airport Rail Link Project]
*cite news
title = Edinburgh Transport Plans
publisher = The Scotsman
url = http://news.scotsman.com/topics.cfm?tid=607
accessdate = 2007-10-02