Revealed, SNP's £6billion plans for floating magnetic trains...what on earth could go wrong!
Alex Salmond’s cabinet discussed spending an eyewatering £6billion on a ‘stand alone’ monorail between Glasgow and Edinburgh during the financial crash.
The bizarre top secret plan for a floating ‘Magnetic levitation’ train was put forward by John Swinney as SNP finance secretary.
The scheme was ‘ambitious and exciting’ and would ‘set Scotland on a world stage’, he said.
In a paper to the Scottish cabinet in March 2009, he said there had already been an initial feasibility study into the ‘Maglev’ project and asked if it should be taken further.
As the technology was proven - Shanghai had had a Maglev for four years - there were no ‘show stoppers’ on the technical side and a 2018 start date was ‘realistic’.
The main problem was financial, as there was ‘no existing budget’ to fund it.
A high-speed maglev train, capable of a top speed of 600kph, in Qingdao, China
The idea was the brainchild of UK Ultraspeed, a German-backed bid to link the major cities and airports between Glasgow and Edinburgh to London with a 300mph monorail.
Tony Blair’s Labour government rejected it in 2007 after a Maglev crash the previous year killed 23 people in Germany and a proposed line in Berlin was hit by spiraling costs.
The UK Government backed HS2 instead.
But Mr Salmond remained intrigued by the idea of the world’s longest elevated monorail cutting the journey time between Scotland’s biggest cities to 18 minutes.
In his paper to colleagues, Mr Swinney said as well as boosting growth, ‘Scotland would be seen as a world leader in transport innovation if the Maglev were introduced’.
However there were downsides to consider.
Mr Salmond with John Swinney at Holyrood in 2008
The UK’s plan for HS2 would be ‘incompatible’ with a Scottish Maglev.
Mr Swinney wrote: ‘This could result therefore in any Edinburgh-Glasgow Maglev being a stand alone scheme rather than offering an integrated network with connections to the south and beyond.’
The construction costs were also estimated at between £2.4 and £2.7billion, up to £1 billion more than the new Forth Road Crossing between Edinburgh and Fife.
Public accounting rules meant it ‘could only proceed if it were promoted and delivered as a genuine private initiative’, but the builders might want the Government to underwrite it.
And if the monorail was built privately, the total repayment costs would be around £200 million a year for 30 years, and this had not been budgeted for either.
The plans were reminiscent of George Bennie's railplane, tested near Glasgow in the 1930s
‘There is some risk associated with the overall cost of the project,’ Mr Swinney added. ‘There are some unresolved issues relating to land take and this may increase the overall cost.’
He said one option would be to progress the Maglev ‘as an alternative’ to existing plans to electrify the rail line via Falkirk High and revamp Glasgow Queen Street station.
Mr Swinney said scaling back this programme would attract ‘considerable criticism’ from Network Rail and First ScotRail, especially as they were unlikely to support a Maglev.
A Maglev would also be a rival to ScotRail and cost the franchise holder £40million a year in lost ticket sales.
Because the monorail plan included a stop at Edinburgh Airport, it would also be in ‘direct competition’ with Edinburgh’s trams.
Pushing ahead was therefore ‘likely to be criticised’ and would need ‘sensitive handling’.
Mr Swinney wrote: ‘To date the development of the Maglev project has been carried out with no publicity as agreed with UK Ultraspeed. We could expect to be faced with a series of Parliamentary Questions or debates
‘The project offers a step change in the way we travel. A Maglev between Edinburgh and Glasgow is ambitious and exciting; it would set Scotland on a world stage and show that we are a dynamic and progressive country planning transport provision fit for decades ahead.’
In discussion, ministers said the project ‘appeared feasible from a technological standpoint’ and noted there were ‘no projected upfront capital costs for the Scottish Government’.
However ‘there was currently no financial provision’ for paying for it over 30 years.
And although its ‘innovative nature’ had ‘presentational attractions’, it had not been part of a recent review setting out transport priorities for the next 20 years, which had ‘placed considerable emphasis’ on improving existing Glasgow-Edinburgh rail services.
The cabinet agreed ‘there should be no public funding to develop this proposal further, but that other options for taking this forward could be explored’.
