Bridge closure forces transport rethink for Hogmanay in EDI
 

Looks like I'll have to leave the Landy parked up and take the Maule

https://www.facebook.com/ivaldi.nasc...2167128473282/

Brilliant!!

I'm leaving home at 03.15 tomorrow to get there by 05.30 I would have organised Donald with the R44 but for the £200 landing fee!

What's Hogmanay? Some Hindu or Maya feast dish? A dark suburb of Budapest or Arkhangelsk?

What's EDI? To me it always meant Electronic Data Interchange but I seem to be missing something here.

EDI is Edinburgh Airport, previously Edinburgh Turnhouse in the good old days. Now it's an expensive shopping centre with expensive car parking and ludicrously expensive aircraft parking. Used to have four runways now has one. Thats progress (not). Cars parked on two and aircraft parked on the other. Rabbits occupy the vast areas of grass where there used to be gliders.

Hogmanay is one of the regular excuses us Scots have to get pissed so that we can forget the rotten weather and inacessable airports. Everyone gets up to dance and sing along to Auld Lang Syne (don't ask) between gulping alcohol eating black bun and boaking it up again.

Thanks, DO. Some of that had been imagined... like a suburb of Edinborough CAN be as dark as any. And, no, I'll not ask about that song, been there done that, in various degrees of (in)sobriety... just like the other one about them bonny bonny banks.
But among aviators, I think you'll agree there's better pointers to Turnhouse than the IATA code.

DO,

"Now it's an expensive shopping centre with expensive car parking and ludicrously expensive aircraft parking."

How could you have forgotten to mention the just slightly less inexpensive tram?

Now that we've clarified the meaning of EDI and Hogmanay, back to the video.

pb84, was that a recording of your Maule training? 😀

Canonball Run, 1981, I do believe?

Me? I'd take the train, then I could drink as much as I wanted.

G

I probably will take the train, but I've often wondered what tourists think about the train service that serves our little piece of heaven. In particular those holiday makers attempting to catch a flight home from Edinburgh after visiting Dundee, Aberdeen , Inverness the Highlands and Islands or pretty much anywhere north of the central belt, an area that consists the bulk of the country. Their East Coast train journey will involve numerous stops at every little one horse town in the Kingdom of Fife that nobody has ever heard of nor uses to finally taking in the beauty of crossing the Forth on a bridge that runs parallel to the now closed road bridge then shortly thereafter coming within sight of the airport. Their proximity to the westerly runway threshold allows for a close inspection of the major components of the ILS, the taxiways, runway markers, terminal building, the short term parking and depending on gate assignment they can see the actual aircraft they will eventually be departing on. At this point they have a choice, they can attempt to jump from the train into the hay field next to the threshold in a manner similar to that used by Donald Pleasance and James Garner in The Great Escape i.e. throw luggage first then jump from the moving train followed by quickly rolling behind a hay bale so the train driver or conductor does not notice, or suffer the expense and time of at least another hours worth of train then taxi or bus or tram journey to get back to the point they are currently at, as the main train line does not have a stop or station at the main airport. I sincerely hope the transport planner who thought this one out was pole axed, it would be thoroughly deserved.

M'self, when I'm visiting either Edinburgh or Aberdeen, I fly into Dundee - then take that slow but quite delightful railway line into the applicable city centre. Alternately I take the sleeper from London or Watford - to the Edinburgh or Aberdeen city centre.

There are numerous reasons to use neither major airport.

G

Cumbernauld could be another possibility. Surface transport from there would probably need to be a taxi to Larbert or Falkirk and then a train into Edinburgh. If you wanted to drive all the way, then it is on the right side of the Forth.

No IAP at Cumbernauld.

G

One of the greatest misnomers. I remember the lottery of sharing with a total stranger. I could not believe it. The guy who showed up was a cross between Sutcliffe and Reggie. Did not sleep much.

The other great mystery was that you set off from Glasgow Central, only to get to a side junction just abeam Carstairs, park up for about three hours, with the crash, bang of shunting carriages. Truly dreadful....has it improved any?

Most track maintenance is done at night, as a result you get shunted from east to west and back round it, which is why it takes so long. Did it once, never again!
The Maule into Princes street sounds a good plan.

Never had much problem myself - you can pay a supplement to have a cabin to yourself mind you, which I normally do if I can.

G

Know exactly what you mean about missed opportunity for easy access to Edinburgh Airport. Should've been a station at Turnhouse from the 60s like Teeside Airport had.
However, bodge job coming along now;
What's happening? - Gogar rail interchange - Network Rail

(nb. curious to know which 100 cyclists are going to take on the roadworks at the Gogar & Maybury Rd roundabouts to get to their special shelter at the new interchange hub).

Reading this - looks like they've got three weeks to finish & open it.

Still don't get it, why insist on people having to humph there luggage off the train and onto a tram then off again at the airport regardless if the train/tram switchover is at Gogar roundabout the Gyle center or wherever. They need to cut to the chase and stop the damned train next the airport and build a walkway from there to the terminal, and if they are so concerned about what cyclists are going to be doing, get the bastards yoked up in pedicabs to haul those of us that are to lazy to walk to the terminal.

Talking about Scottish airports Edinburgh isn't the only one. Glasgow has no rail link. Aberdeen has a train station at Dyce, but it's on the opposite side of the airport to the terminal, so a taxi ride. And Inverness could have had one if they'd used a bit of common sense a few yeas ago when they built their new terminal, on the south side of the airport, where they relocated the tower and right beside the railway line and the A96 road. Joined up transport policy? What's that?

Prestwick is the only one I believe with a useable train stop.

No rail station near me. Due to Forth Bridge calamity we had to leave too early to use any kind of public transport to the airport.
However all is sweetness and light now that I'm at my final destination. Not a cloud in the sky and 25 degrees. Bliss.
I'll not be going to Edinburgh for Hogmanay!