News.Scotland.Org

Lothian Buses has launched a new fleet of Airlink buses at the Edinburgh Airport and is said to be the highest-spec buses in the country. Passengers who are flying from the Edinburgh Airport can have a luxurious short trip before reaching the terminal. This £3 million fleet for the Airlink services is more than the standard fleet of vehicles and is priced at £200,000 each – £30,000.

Among the 75 new buses ordered in 2008 by Airlink, The 14 new fleet of buses are the best ever to be made. Although the expensive new buses are clean and emitting fewer particulates and less nitrous oxide, the managing director of Lothian Buses, Ian Craig say that they emit higher levels of carbon. He also added that the firm would be in a ‘good position’, if they invested in Hybrid and biofuel vehicles when it bought the new buses.

The main reason for the luxury buses to come into light is that due to the 28.7 percent of the passengers taking public transport thereby beating the target to 26 percent.

The new buses offer various luxurious exposures like:

• The “E-leather” upholstery- A recycled and environmentally friendly real-leather product with its claret and cream material has the perfect look and feel of pure leather.
• Provides electric sockets for charging laptops and phones
• To keep an eye on the luggage downstairs, CCTV is provided
• For a calming and mood enhancing effect, LED lights are put up that changes colour according to the time of the day and mood.
• To check emails on the 30-minute journey, free wi-fi is provided

Many fixtures and added provisions are still to come like screens that display information on stops and distance to arrival and important informations on the various hotels and tourist attractions that will add another £20,000 to the cost.

Edinburgh will soon be connected with a city-wide tram network providing people a safe and hassle free transport system. According to reports these trams will start its operations by the start of next month. This £500m project will benefit the people to commute easily and its also one of the most technically advanced projects. It is predicted that it will take two more years before the tram line linking Edinburgh Airport with the city center and Leith will be ready.

The head of transport at Edinburgh city council, Marshall Poulton said, This tram is a good quality product and will be comfortable,quite and pleasant ride for travelers. Meanwhile it is also felt that the increase in traffic will also be solved with the onset of this tram service.

Good thing about this project is that amidst all the opposition in the initial stage, now this ambitious project is all ready to be put into test. Hope the people of Edinburgh will enjoy their ride in these trams.

Scotrail has assured for regular operation of the trains amidst the 24-hour strike called by its workers here on Monday. Nine out of ten trains will run, making sure the commuters don’t face any problems to travel, says officials at Scotrails. Meanwhile the strike has been called over the issue of safety, even last month around 550 rail workers staged a 24-hour walkout and with today’s strike its second strike in a row in the past one month.

Reports have even suggested for another walk on March 13, whilst the core issue for all these strikes remains the passenger-staff safety and the ripping up of agreements dating back to 2001 that protect the safety-critical role of the guard on Scotrail trains. Anger can also be seen on the government agency transport Scotland which had backed the first Scotrail’s plan to run the service with drivers and ticket examiners, but without any conductors.

This anger between the workers and the management seems to continue with innocent passengers left to face the brunt of these regular rail strikes. Hope the unrest gets over soon and Scotts don’t have to face any further rail strikes in future.

News Source – BBC News

Once again the British Airways cabin  crew strike is in the news for the wrong reasons. Millions of passengers will be forced to put up with the travel woes in the coming days as the British Airways cabin crew voted to strike, for the second time after the December strike call, which was put on hold after the intervention of the court. The BA workers voted  4-1 in favour of a strike to express their dissatisfaction over various issues including pay cuts and job losses. The resentment among the BA crew, which culminated in the strike call was the fall out of the BA’s plan to hire cabin crew at  lower pay scales. BA had also suspended several staff for allegedly posting “inappropriate comments” about potential strike-breakers on a social networking site.

Over 12,000 stewards would strike work by next week and though the union leaders have promised not to time the strike during the Easter holidays, the BA passengers are skeptical. While the Unite assistant general secretary Len McCluskey opined that the 78 percent vote turnout in the strike call ballot  a clear sign of anger and frustration towards the management, BA described the ballot result as unjustified. The union hope that these ballots would give the management enough time to consider the grievances even as the talks between the management and the employee unions were progressing.

BA opined that pay cuts were necessary to make up for the losses of the company and a spokesman added that the airline would do whatever they can to minimise the impact of the strike on passengers and will protect the interests of their customers. The ballot result came as Lufthansa had to ground hundreds of flights due to a four-day strike by pilots. Many travel operators have termed that the strike will be a blow  for both the passengers and the BA as the BA traffic continues to nose dive, which has hit a 19 percent fall since the first strike ballot.

Picture Source: dailymail.co.uk

The Borders railway link bill,which was passed recently will ensure the reopening of the Borders rail line that ran between Edinburgh and Tweedbank near Galashiels , which was closed way back in 1969. The total project cost is expected to be over   £295m and the project will take off  in 2011 and is expected to be completed in 2014.  The MSPs approved the Waverley Railway (Scotland) Bill by 114 votes to one, with one abstention.

The new rail line that extends from Newcraighall in Edinburgh to Tweedbank. will have stations at Shawfair, Eskbank, Newtongrange, Gorebridge, Stow, and Galashiels. The  railway line will not only improve the accessibility with the border towns but will also improve tourism prospects  by way of chartered train trips, which will be of economic benefit as well.  Nonethless, claims that the reopened rail line would rake up £500,000 annually by way of tourism revenue have received a mixed public response.

The train service would make it easier for people based in Stirling or Glasgow to visit the region and will take off hundreds of cars from the Edinburgh roads, considerably reducing the emissions. Apart from the green reasons, this railway project will be a boon to the border residents to travel to Edinburgh and other cities, which at present is connected only by day time coach trips, which is time consuming and strenuous.

The old timers who share a nostalgic memory of the  romantic Waverley Line is excited at the thought that these are being brought back to life.  Many feel that an orient express theme would be  a good  idea to go back in time and space to the era of Sir Walter Scott!

If everything goes well, it will soon be an amphibious bus that will link Braehead shopping centre and Clydebank in Glasgow, thus becoming the first ‘amfibus’  not just in Scotland, but in the whole of UK to carry commuters.

Transport Operators Stagecoach, who are already operating such buses for tours on the Hudson River in New York, plan to bring in this amphibious bus as a replacement for 500-year-old Renfrew ferry across the Clyde, which is going to be wound up, being financially non-viable.

Stagecoach is all set to go for a trial on Monday, when the vehicle, which costs £70,000 , will cross the Clyde, of course sans commuters. The vehicle, which has a hull enabling it to float and which is powered by twin water jets producing a 10mph top speed, has already been tested and sources at Stagecoach reveal that everything is fine and that the Amfibus is fully safety-certified for operation on road and water by European transport regulatory authorities.

The introduction of the Amfibus would no doubt be a blessing as well as a great experience for those many commuters who go across the 200-yard wide Clyde.

The Dalcairnie Falls near Damellington in East Ayshire, froze from top to bottom. The sources said that it was for the first time since 1947 that the water falls got frozen like this.

The whole of United Kingdom (UK) is facing severe snowfalls and bad weather. England’s south-western counties were badly affected. The fresh snow has hit major parts of UK, causing more problems for transport adding more trouble for road gritting. More schools are shut and roads in south-western counties of Europe didn’t open. While the busiest of UK roads underwent emergency repair work due to the damage caused by the snow.

Scotland is battling to ward off a shortage of salt to grit its roads as the country is facing two weeks of heavy snowfall. The Scottish Government was forced to step in last night to ensure there was enough salt to grit roads in Fife. The salt supplies were said to be at “critically low levels in many councils across Scotland“.

The transportation in Scotland has almost come to a still and, if the situation prevails the public life will be numbed. There are already warnings of a fresh snowfalls in central and northern parts of the country. Temperatures at nights in central Scotland are expected to be between -5C and -10C but could reach -15C, creating instant ice problems where there is snow or rainfall. Several road mishaps and accidents have reported in the country on contrary to the heavy snowfalls.

The severe weather conditions are said to affect the major businesses that would impact Scotland’s economy as poor travel conditions stop people from returning to work from the Christmas and New Year break. Yet, the Transport Scotland seems to reassure the public that there is enough salt to keep Scotland’s motorways open.

It seems the snow gods are really pleased on Scots with a record snowfall in the country in 20 years. Temperature has dropped as low as -16c a major concern for commuters. Transportation has been hit severely in several parts of the country paralyzing the life of people.
Even reports states that with heavy snowfall, the runway at Edinburgh Airport was closed taking into account the safety of people and avoid any untoward accident of planes skidding off the runway. Though snowfall is nothing new for Scottish people, but this year the condition is really adverse with loss of life and property. The continuous snowfall has caused many accidents on highland roads.

In order to counter the increasing accidents, the roads authorities have advised people to travel only if it is absolutely necessary. Even the tourism industry has been hit badly with drop in the    percentage of tourists turning out to Scotland for holidays.

The Edinburgh Half Marathon is scheduled for 18th April 2010. The route is from Meadowbank Stadium that goes to the Firth of Forth cost to Portobello and then goes south and finally finishing at the Musselburgh racetrack. This time there are some serious participants and all running for some reason. Some might be fun runners, fund raisers or even some who run for charity.

How much you need to train yourself for this marathon depends. They say it hardly take 10-12 weeks for a beginner to get acquainted with half marathon. More information about this marathon is available on the website of Chris Hoy Edinburgh half marathon.

Marathon enthusiasts can be seen training themselves running around and keeping their fitness level intact for the big day. The race is to commensurate the campaign ‘Be a friend of the earth’ and those who are affiliated with ‘Friends of the Earth Scotland‘ can participate for free.

Scotland, Edinburgh half marathon aims to raise maximum funds for its clean world campaign. The motto is to enable everyone gets a fair share of clean environment and earth’s resources. Friends of the Earth Scotland was formed to help people look after the planet.

Visitor to Scotland in the coming year will find plenty of activities to enjoy, if you can be a part of fund raising campaign along with your leisure trip, won’t that be great?

For more information about Scotland travel, please visit http://www.scotland.org.uk