Hurrah for the Border railway as it takes another tentative step towards the day when I can board a train at Tweedbank and tootle off to the capital without the need to drive the long and winding A7 among, what some predict, will soon be endless convoys of huge lorries laden with stones.
Committing the Scottish Government to actually building the railway rather than endlessly talking about it is a big step in the right direction. But because schemes like this are something of a political football, we should never forget they can be k
icked into touch at short notice on little more than a political whim.
Last week, with a splendid piper wailing away in the background, transport minister Stewart Stevenson ritually dug the first sod, with a few local bigwigs on hand to tell him what a grand hand he is with a spade. Maybe our Stewart has an allotment up in Holyrood Park, although, to be honest, he does not image as a bloke well used to manual labour.
Locally, we can award full marks to Councillor Davidson who quite correctly stated the essential fact that the railway will increase the urgency not only for a Selkirk bypass, but a complete transport infrastructure to service the railway, although that in itself will no doubt create yet another gaggle of objectors.
We are assured that as time goes by progress on the railway project will speed up and by 2014 my dream railway trip will be a reality. On that one I can report all pigs serviced, fuelled up and ready for flight.
So, another big promise, but when will these guys ever learn?
We heard all the same huffing and puffing from the folk in charge of the Edinburgh tramway project and even as we read The Wee Paper, a lot of that project is at a standstill while the various contractors try to screw more cash out of the work.
It appears the tramway contract was not very well drafted or costed, so the work now needs a big injection of dosh to reach its terminus, or so they say. Most ordinary citizens will by now have considered the idea that the contractors should be told to get on with it or quit – surely there are plenty of other firms who would relish the chance to make some decent money.
Meanwhile, back in the Borders, the usual crew are greeting away about the railway.
I am beginning to feel a little sorry for them as they bleat away with their doleful litanies of spurious reasons why the railway must fail, although a hint of desperation has crept into many of the voices.
There is a common theme to most of these jokers as they consider they would never personally have any need for a railway to Edinburgh and cannot imagine anyone else having that requirement. They refuse to even contemplate the notion that a day might dawn when the circumstances which surround them or their own personal deal from life might radically change and they might be glad to hop on a train.
Instead, they continue to preach and promise like any other saloon bar expert, confident their opinion is the only one that is right and they are the only ones who can save us from what one pundit has even declared a great folly.
No matter what is proposed for the Borders these days, it inevitably spawns objectors of all colours.
