The Transport Minister’s office wrote to RAGES asking them to arrange a meeting with the Transport Scotland Rail Policy Team at Buchanan House, Glasgow. and that meeting took place last week when RAGES chairman and vice chairman were joined by MSPs Iain Gray and Paul Wheelhouse and Councillors Joan Campbell and Paul McLennan.
The Transport Scotland Rail Policy Team were told that there were many unhappy people in East Lothian, Berwickshire and Berwick and new Scot Rail franchise operators Abellio announced that the local service could not start in December 2016, the initial start date given by the Transport Minister.
There followed an in-depth discussion about the shortage of rolling stock to run the service and the progress of planning and construction of East Linton and Reston Stations to bring things back as close as possible to the original 2016 date.
It was agreed that RAGES would write to Transport Scotland Rail Policy Team, for defined detail of the station planning at Reston and East Linton, through to opening and that six-monthly meetings would take place at Buchanan House, so that RAGES was kept up to speed with developments.