Comment: Borders railway project far from smooth
Ministers were forced to scrap plans for the private sector to finance, build and maintain the route after two of the three shortlisted groups pulled out in 2010 and 2011.
The return to traditional methods under Network Rail put back the original 2011 opening date even further.
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Hide AdThe following year, we revealed the railway would cost £350 million compared with a previous estimate of up to £295m, which itself had increased several times.
Since then, our newspapers have highlighted a catalogue of shortcomings, such as the length of double track being scaled back to cover less than one third of the 30-mile line. That will mean the cancellation of up to six ScotRail services a day to make way for steam trains running three times a week from next Thursday.
In addition, about eight new bridges have built over the line and these have space for only a single track, so they would have to re-modelled at significant cost to accommodate a second line in the future.
The papers also highlighted that ScotRail’s least reliable diesel trains will serve the route, with only one being refurbished in time for the opening.