Chamber and committees

The Gourock Interchange project will enable rail, ferry, bus and taxi users to switch between travel modes in a modern purpose built environment.

As part of the Review of the Railways, the UK Government intends that greater responsibility for railways in Scotland will transfer to Scottish ministers.

The changes, outlined in the UK Government Future of Rail White Paper, remain subject to agreement on a fair and appropriate transfer of resources from the UK Government to the Scottish Executive.

The Access for All fund will be prioritised on a British National basis. I understand that the Strategic Rail Authority intend to publish a consultation paper in November that will cover the scope for applications to be made to the Access for All fund as well as the criteria for prioritising stations.

The key major transport infrastructure projects being given priority by the Scottish Executive are set out in the Transport White Paper Scotland’s Transport Future (published on 16 June 2004), available from the Scottish Parliament Reference Centre (Bib. number 33072).

GSM-R is primarily a rail safety matter – and therefore reserved. It is intended to improve communication between train drivers and signallers. The programme’s implementation is a matter for Network Rail, due to its responsibility for railway infrastructure and the safe and efficient operation of the rail network. The Scottish Executive is aware of the significant concern about some of the mast sites and will continue to monitor the situation and make appropriate representations to Network Rail.

Ownership of the station is under discussion between Transport Innovative Edinburgh Limited, the British Airports Authority and Network Rail. The detailed funding arrangements for the Edinburgh Airport Rail Link has not yet been agreed.

Under the terms of the public private partnership agreement between the partners in the eTourism joint venture company, all VisitScotland marketing must promote exclusively and prominently the visitscotland.com website name and telephone number. eTourism Ltd is the public private partnership company set up to provide, develop and operate the website, and it is paying a concession fee of £1 million over the life of the project for these exclusive arrangements. eTourism Ltd also provides the technology platform and e-commerce infrastructure required to deliver the services set out as part of the public private partnership agreement.

Following Royal Assent to the Stirling to Alloa to Kincardine Railway and Linked Improvements Act 2004, work on the detailed design of the scheme continues on schedule.

In parallel with this work detailed discussions with Network Rail and on funding issues are continuing. The partners in the Stirling to Alloa to Kincardine Project Execution Team (Scottish Executive, ClackmannanshireCouncil, Fife Council, Scottish Enterprise Forth Valley, Strategic Rail Authority) remain confident that the project is proceeding on schedule.

The ScotRail daytime fleet currently comprises 234 trains with over 40,000 seats.

The rest of the ScotRail fleet currently comprises of 53 sleeping vehicles and 11 vehicles with seating accommodation offering a total of 864 berths and 248 seats per night. In addition, there are 11 lounge-cars which provide refreshment facilities for sleeping car passengers.

Presently, all of ScotRail’s rolling stock is operational.

This is an operational matter for visitscotland.com.