South West Programme for Rail

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Introducing a Programme for Rail to provide better rail links would benefit the South West at a relatively low cost.

The town of Dumfries and the surrounding areas yield a population catchment of around 50-60k, yet the
railway usage from Dumfries station is only around a third of the total usage of similar sized towns and
cities such as Perth, excluding interchange figures. One reason as to why the usage figures are as low
could be due to the significant difference in services to Glasgow and Edinburgh. The service frequencies
to Glasgow and Edinburgh from both Perth and Dumfries compared, indicate a stark contrast in the
catchment of possible rail connections from both stations.

Benefits would include:

• Journey times from Dumfries reduced to 75 minutes to Glasgow (from ~ 120 minutes), with similar
  journey times to Edinburgh with new direct services, encouraging rail travel from Dumfries and
  surrounding areas
• Significant increase in capacity on services from Carlisle to Glasgow via Kilmarnock, as well as Dumfries
  to Glasgow via WCML
• Reduced journey times from Annan and Gretna to Glasgow, and new services to Edinburgh