I attended the board meeting of the North East of Scotland Transport Partnership (Nestrans) this afternoon in Aberdeen and once again pressed the case for better rail services and more stations.
A £3.2m Civitas Portis European Project grant is being made to improve travel in the area. This will involve a consortium of council, university and private partners. I was assured that investment in rail improvements will include this in its scope.
Who knows where this will lead.
We also heard that further work on long distance paths is being undertaken, including the possibility of an Aberdeen to Stonehaven route. Sustrans has agreed that £50,000 of a grant can be used in developing this project. This should be allocated to a feasibility study and outline design of six long distance paths in Aberdeenshire.
The other interesting suggestion was that a new rail route from Aberdeen should go beyond Ellon to a so-called parkway station, near to the A90 so that drivers from Fraserburgh and Peterhead would be attracted to use a park and (train) ride.
This would mirror the success of the Tweedbank station on the new Borders railway. In the year that it has been open the number of passengers has been 10 times the prediction.