LongTimeLurker

Wanting to include both rail and motorway scale road components on something like this was the turd in the proverbial punch bowl in feasibility and cost-benefit terms. Hopefully MPs and MSPs from Outer Teuchtonia will continue to point out stuff like the following in contexts where a two lane road would do the job just fine... ...what the Faroese do with one lane tunnels with passing places to link crofting townships on islands with fewer than 100 inhabitants is also mildly mind blowing: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kalsoy

...but at least you are not bitter about any of this. Not so long ago there was a glass ceiling that stopped a club like Kelty from moving beyond this sort of level: It will be a while before having a former junior club at the top of League Two feels normal rather than remarkable. There's more coming particularly from the west that won't need to be financially doped to make a significant impact in the lower divisions along with another, Darvel, who will be if the Killie pieman hangs around long enough.

Not necessarily. The Faroese tunnel that generated all the interest goes deeper than that: It can mean you have to lengthen things to keep the gradient reasonable though, especially if you decide to add a rail component as was the case with Boris Johnson's proposed fixed link from Scotland to Ulster.

Accies have tended to lose a lot of support locally to Motherwell over the years (going back to being in the old second division post-WWII when Motherwell were doing well in the top tier) in addition to the effect of being so close to the Old Firm. The club has over-achieved in a big way in recent times thanks to having Ronnie MacDonald on board. Take him out of the equation as is now happening and League One is probably the natural habitat. Ability to remain full-time in the years ahead and stay ahead of nouveau riche clubs like Queen's Park, Kelty Hearts and Cove Rangers is definitely not a given.

Dunoon-Otter Ferry-Lochgilphead is the axis that makes most sense over the longer term to lower journey times from Kintyre, Islay and Mid Argyll into Glasgow in a balanced sort of way but would obviously need a lot of work to upgrade from narrow road with passing places format. When you have somebody suggesting in official documents a tunnel via the virtually uninhabited Wee Cumbrae rather than Great Cumbrae that has Millport on it you have to wonder how serious they are about any of this though. Even if nothing else happens a Faroese style tunnel to Dunoon should be a no brainer in the short term given the relatively large population involved. If you did that with spurs heading to the north and south ends of the town in a similar way to what the Esturoyartunnilin does: Maybe a short tunnel from the south end of Cowal to the Rothesay area makes sense at that point.

The LL is not at all likely to vote for a second automatic relegation slot as currently constituted. An LL 2 division was the pet project of their new chairman and is the only thing the turkeys are likely to vote for right now.

These are the options that have been looked at to deal with the Rest and Be Thankful landslip issue: https://www.scotsman.com/news/transport/bridges-or-tunnels-across-clyde-among-bypass-options-rest-and-be-thankful-landslip-hotspot-2980670 Bute and Wee Cumbrae are more likely than Arran for fixed links related to that but probably also in don't hold your breath sort of territory at least where the Wee Cumbrae angle is concerned: https://www.largsandmillportnews.com/news/18765464.incredible-plan-considered-see-tunnel-linking-portencross-wee-cumbrae-isle-bute/

^^^Fortunately SNP politicians like Angus MacNeil and Brendan O'Hara are not as closed minded on this issue as this guy is and understand the possibilities for the island communities they represent.

I'd put money on you to beat Annan Athletic, so why would Accies fans be confident?

Because the whole idea of coining the term conspiracy theory was to stop people from questioning authority.

https://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/scottish-news/450m-western-isles-tunnel-proposal-23839576 ...Norconsult has led projects to construct tunnels in Norway and the Faroes. Following discussions with MacNeil, the consultants prepared a brief suggesting a tunnel between Harris and Skye as the best option with a possible additional inter-island link between Harris and North Uist.

...or if it's not in the central belt or to connect to it in some way but somewhere out in Outer Teuchtonia in a Scottish context. The Westminster model of excessive centralisation has only been partially shifted rather than replaced. The more ambitous projects that actually get proposed in a Western Isles context is a tunnel from somewhere north of Uig on Skye to Harris, plus some combination of tunnels, causeways or bridges to be able to island hop from North Uist via Berneray to Harris and South Uist via Eriskay to Barra. That would directly hook up 25% of Scotland's island population to the mainland road network 24/7 for about 3 years worth of ferry subsidies in a Scottish context if it could be done at Faroese prices. Ullapool doesn't rate a mention unless someone is deliberately trying to discredit the idea (another poster who may have TFS thread related issues as the motivating factor). What does rate a mention sometimes though is how fixed links can potentially be used to help the roll out of renewables by also accomodating grid cable connectors to the mainland and possibly especially in an Orkney context by helping to harness tidal power.

^^^would normally just ignore this pathetic identity politics obsessed bigot but there are already several concrete examples readily available in a Scottish context of how fixed links can transform remote island communities and reverse depopulation trends. Check out what causeways and bridges did for Eriskay, Scalpay and Vatersay in the Western Isles and Trondra and Burra in Shetland, for example. The Faroese have shown how there is scope to be more ambitious than that if the centre of infrastructure decision making can be brought closer to people's lives than happens in either a Scottish or UK context. If the decision making was happening from Copenhagen odds on there would be no roundabout under the sea.

If it's Stevie Archibald then he really wasn't.

Sure but lights are going up at clubs like Tayport and Lochee United so the issue of being a champion that can't do the playoffs unlike some of the other top clubs that could is potentially about to lumber over the horizon. I seriously doubt East Craigie's unusually good form so far this season is based on blowing other Tayside clubs out of the water financially. Could pan out differently in the Aberdeen area with no Banks o Dee around if it was a lower division club like Aberdeen Uni that did licensing next but word is that other top clubs are interested.

So keep pouring vast subsidies into ferries and airstrips so a population that over time tends to be increasingly skewed towards new age hippy types can merrily commune with nature rather than spending similar sums on fixed links to reverse decades long trends in depopulation amongst families that have lived in the area for centuries and would be a lot more likely to hang around and be economicaly productive if they could have a more normal 21st century lifestyle? Back in the 1950s the mentality wasn't if they wanted running water and electricity they would live on the mainland, but somewhere along the line the Faroese kept going on pushing the envelope on infrastructure rollout and Scotland/UK stopped.

Probably on the pave the way bit but Bridge of Don Thistle and Dyce are ones to keep an eye on where licensing is concerned, and Montrose Roselea certainly don't need to worry where ground requirements are concerned even if they haven't appeared keen to do it so far. Once the pathway gets opened up the top clubs in the Midlands and North Region feeder leagues are likely to start going for it because how do you explain to players that the prize they are playing for can't happen because the club isn't ambitious to progress up to the next tier?

^^^only if said Midlands League champion is licensed and two of the three frontrunners (East Craigie and Carnoustie Panmure) are unlikely to be. Banks o Dee are looking like the probable playoff winner at this point.

The scary thing is that there's a far from impossible scenario where they can still avoid relegation this season, if Bonnyrigg Rose (or whoever from the LL) were to beat Elgin City in the Club 42 playoffs. Nothing is likely to change for at least another 5-10 years until enough top former east and west junior clubs are in the LL to vote through a new type of pro/rel structure but there's nothing stopping the WoS kicking up a fuss about it on a regular basis and maybe even proposing that they get bumped up to tier 5.

GB and NI having separate incompatible rail gauges doesn't help either before we get into the Beeching era cuts having done away with the Stranraer to Dumfries line.

Having a 1000 ft deep trench in the way that has been used as a dump for munitions and radioactive waste does complicate matters. It would be unfortunate though if other potential fixed link projects that do not face the same sort of engineering challenges and would have considerably lower price tags are now routinely dismissed as fantasy because Boris highlighted one that is unusually difficult and expensive to achieve when he probably wasn't even serious about ever doing it in the first place.