Investment in the rail network does pay off, as a report about Laurencekirk to next week’s Aberdeenshire Council infrastructure services committee shows. Just how long do we have to wait for Aberdeen crossrail and a station at Newtonhill?

Here is the report:

Laurencekirk Station has out-performed projected patronage with some 92,470 passengers in 2012/13. This is approximately 2.5 times more than the 36,000 passenger forecast used in the business case.

In May, Transport Scotland published the results of an evaluation into the effectiveness of the re-opening of Laurencekirk Station in May 2009. A survey of users indicated that 58 per cent use the station for commuting (with more than 75 per cent of those travelling into Aberdeen). Half of which stated that they would have driven to work had the station not reopened. Laurencekirk Station was found to have removed around 2.6 million vehicle kilometres from the local and regional road network.