New Trains Services Calling at Broughty Ferry - Call for Improvements to Broughty Ferry Station

I welcome the recent announcement about improvements to the schedule of trains that will stop at Broughty Ferry Station when the new rail national timetable comes into force on Sunday 11 December. This includes four more trains a day going south and three more trains a day heading north.

I regret however that First Scot Rail have not comprehensively implemented what the Tayside and Central Scotland Transport Partnership (Tactran) recommended in their Tay Estuary Rail Study. A regular hourly timetable of services would have meant that potential rail users would have got the hang of the services that connected Broughty Ferry with Dundee and  heading north to stations towards Aberdeen. As it is, we will have trains with long gaps between services. For example, if you miss the 11:07 train to Aberdeen you will have a four hour gap until the 16:09 pulls in. Similarly, if you miss the O7:41 train to Glasgow, you would have to wait for the 10:43 train.

While there will be some more trains stopping, I have not heard about any plans for enhancing passenger information at the station. I have written to Scotrail to demand improvements in two ways. Firstly to make provision for at least a poster of the train timetable to be displayed on the up platform. Secondly, in an unstaffed station, it would be helpful and reassuring if there were a electronic display showing the upcoming arrivals and whether they are running late or are cancelled.

Imagine standing on the down platform on a Friday night waiting for the last train south (towards Dundee which runs on to Perth) due at just after half past midnight (00:33). This is a potentially useful service because the last bus for Dundee would have left hours before. It could be a lonely and worrying wait. The last train heading north towards Aberdeen would have stopped on the opposite platform more than an hour before so it’s pretty certain that there would not be any folk waiting or alighting on the other platform. So as you wait you are bound to wonder whether you have missed the train. Maybe your watch is running slow? It is only when the level crossing barrier drops that you are reassured that a train is on its way.

If an electronic display can be mounted in a bus shelter in the city to provide live updates on bus services, surely the equivalent should be supplied in our station?

Finally, the new services are, we have been warned, not a permanent fixture so it's either use it or we lose it."

Timetable of Trains running from Broughty Ferry
from Monday 12 December 2011
(Monday to Saturday unless otherwise specified)

Northbound Trains

06:31 to Inverurie

09:45 to Inverurie

11:07 to Aberdeen

15:09 to Aberdeen

17:47 to Inverurie (Existing Service)

19:00 to Carnoustie (Existing Service)

23:10 to Aberdeen

Southbound Trains

06:29 to Dundee (Existing Service)

07:41 to Glasgow

10:43 to Glasgow (Existing Service)

15:09 to Edinburgh

17:11 to Edinburgh

23:38 to Perth (Monday to Thursday)

00:33 to Perth (Friday Only)

Historic Signal Box to be Part of New Restaurant at Broughty Ferry Station

On Monday evening, the Development Quality Committee of the City Council approved two linked planning applications for a restaurant development at Broughty Ferry station. The new restaurant will reuse the existing Broughty Ferry station buildings on the south platform and incorporate into the development the old signal box (see picture) which had been closed in 1995 and subsequently dismantled. Planning conditions attached to the approvals will, I think, protect the station's historic features. This is important because the Victorian station buildings and the old signal box are part of what makes Broughty Ferry distinctive.
The re-erection of the signal box has been a matter that many local interest groups have campaigned for. I want to particularly thank the Broughty Ferry Community Council and its Planning Secretary, David Hewick, for persistently highlighting this issue and constructively pressurising for the sympathetic resiting of the signal box. I trust that the developers will be able to start the conversion work soon.