Primary amongst the various aims of the Waverley Route Heritage Association is the construction of a heritage railway running south from Whitrope towards the former Riccarton Junction. This railway will offer public passenger services, mainly aimed at the tourist market, operating from a new- build station at Whitrope.

Heritage railways elsewhere in Britain offer popular, all- weather tourist attractions, bringing considerable economic benefits to their local areas through increased visitor spend. Indeed, even at this early stage of railway construction at Whitrope, the Association is providing additional custom to a number of local businesses.

The Association will shortly be applying to the Scottish Ministers for an Order under the Transport and Works Scotland Act (a “TAWS” Order) to give it the necessary legal powers to build the railway. The initial section we wish to rebuild is from Whitrope to Laidlehope, a distance of approximately 1.8 kilometres.

We appreciate that this section of the old Waverley Route has become very popular with walkers, cyclists and hill walkers over the years since closure, and we have been working with Scottish Borders Council to identify a suitable alternative route between Whitrope and Riccarton which we will jointly work to promote.

Around about August or September, we plan to undertake a public consultation exercise to discuss our proposals and listen to and address any concerns or objections raised by interested parties. This consultation will last for a period of six weeks, during which time we will present our detailed plans together with the TAWS Order application documents in the local press, in the Hawick library and on this web site.

Until this time, we welcome all comments and views to our info@wrha.org.uk address.