YOUR VIEWS: Will the Cairngorm funicular run this winter…?
Before the start of the 2023/24 ski season ‘loyal customers’ were sent an email offering season passes with early bird discounts and the additional benefit of funicular access until November 2024.
Susan Smith, ex-CEO of CM(S)L, also said that it was expected for the train to recommence service during the ski season which we all know did not happen.
Now those same loyal customers have again been offered season passes with the same benefits to carry on until the 30/11/2025.
Tim Hurst, the current interim and part time CEO, is repeating the same line “we anticipate the train to return to service during the upcoming snowsports season”!
However, CM(S)L’s latest accounts seem to imply something completely different.
Peter Mearns, chairman of the CM(S)L board, in his statement of 31/03/2024,[ remember that the funicular closed in late August 2023], said “Remedial work began almost immediately but as this progressed it became clear that with the winter weather closing in it would not be completed in 2023.
“If work, particularly grouting which requires a warmer temperature, is not completed in the ‘weather window’ much of it has to wait for better conditions in the spring”.
On 04/10/2024 I walked up the funicular to the passing loop and was surprised at the number of steel brackets lying on the ground and on scaffolding. Do all those brackets require a grouting operation?
If Peter Mearns’ statement is correct then that implies that there will be no funicular this winter.
If I was one of those loyal customers I think I would be replying to the invitation asking (1) Can you guarantee the funicular will re-open and (2) if it doesn’t will I get a refund?
Graham Gartoot
Jarrow
Tyne and Wear.
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Train service connecting the Highlands is pathetic
The ongoing unreliability of the train service to Inverness is a precursor of line closure.
Even with the A9 difficulties, the coach service is more reliable, and a seat is guaranteed.
Serious modernisation of and investment in the rail service is required for it to survive.
The Highland councillors and MSPs seem content to accept that Inverness has the poorest transport links of all Scotland’s cities.
It’s pathetic that for Inverness, the latest public transport to and from Edinburgh and Glasgow leaves at about 8 pm.
All other Scottish cities have round the clock services.
Alan Searle
Aviemore.
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Tunnel vision for Grantown rail lin
Last week whilst on my railway travels in and around Greater London, I was a guest on the Leighton Buzzard Narrow Gauge Railway which went under a recently built tunnel and road bypass allowing through access to the railway.
I wonder if this is how the Gaich Tunnel will look once the railway is re-instated between Broomhill and Grantown?
Ian Lamb
Grantown
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Caper no contest
The capercaillie, most marvellous of our feathered birds, is endangered by enemies including (Strathy, October 24) climate change.
Would taxpayers' money be better spent on trying to preserve the caper or on trying to influence the world's climate by decarbonisation?
There is, in my view, no contest. Saving the capercaillie has a chance of success, by using means suggested and endorsed by experts in the field.
In contrast, claims that dropping our greenhouse gas output by decarbonisation are not backed by any empirical evidence, our share of the planet's manmade carbon dioxide output is negligible at about one per cent and there is no chance that we could ‘shame’ any other nation into decarbonising in the vain hope of influencing the local or global climate for the better.
Thus, capercaillie is far more deserving of our taxed money than is the climate!
Charles Wardrop
Viewlands Road West
Perth.
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$ marks the spot
It's unbelievable - and yet Elon Musk is apparently offering cash to people who vote his friend Mr Trump into the White House.
Donald Trump, judging by his own actions is a self centred, dishonest, rude and arrogant man.
He is also a convicted felon and in his own words a misogynist, xenophobic and racist...
Not a person to inspire confidence.
The feverish religious midwest, in blindly supporting such a man, have cast a moral shadow over the USA, where hangs a fractured democracy - God save America and indeed the world, if Trump becomes president!
Grant Frazer
Newtonmore.
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Cut emissions Mr Ewing, not costs
Jamie Williamson (Letters, October 24th) responded to my criticism of Fergus Ewing MSP's request to "reduce the 'massive' public spending on rewilding [and] peat restoration", by referring to research from the respected James Hutton Institute (JHI) and urging that such expenditure should be based upon "scientific knowledge rather than politics and private financial gain".
The latter is something that I hope most people would agree with. But that was not what Mr Ewing's request called for.
The JHI provides advice on land management issues, including means to increase carbon sequestration and biodiversity recovery, but nowhere does the JHI conclude that expenditure on such issues should be reduced, as Mr Ewing wishes.
Moreover, no sooner has Dr Williamson laudably exhorted us to rely on "scientific evidence" in such matters, than he then chooses to question such evidence from SNH, namely that peatlands in the Monadhliath are in poor condition as "the result of too many herbivores", apparently preferring instead "the anecdotal evidence from local land managers".
Is that not wanting it both ways, supporting scientific evidence when it supports what you want to be true, and then rejecting it when it doesn't?
Dr Williamson also, in referring to the reasons for capercaillie decline, ignores the scientific evidence of the impacts of collisions with fences: again apparently rejecting evidence that he doesn't want to be true.
Whilst I would agree that the scientific evidence concerning impacts of grazing and woodland restoration in upland areas is limited and incomplete, and we may need to apply the precautionary principle at times, what is not in doubt scientifically is the increasingly urgent need to reduce carbon emissions to the atmosphere and the failure of politicians globally to adequately address this issue.
As climate scientist Kevin Anderson recently pointed out, "We are facing a climate emergency because we have chosen to fail to address the challenge for the previous thirty years."
Had we done so, and had we also committed sufficient funds to adequately research the impact of land management upon the carbon cycle in Scotland's uplands, then we would now be in a much better position to act accordingly.
What we should not be doing is supporting politicians who seek to reduce our still inadequate efforts to ensure a survivable future for ourselves and the natural world, and that is why Fergus Ewing MSP's request should be rejected.
Roy Turnbull
Torniscar
Nethy Bridge.
