This train is long overdue. When services were axed to the Fife resort town of Leven in 1969 they also severed the rail link into the tourist temptations of the fishing villages in Fife’s East Neuk. On Sunday 2 June, they were brought back into action with much fanfare, reconnecting the East Neuk and raising hopes of regeneration in Leven.
This is the first new railway line in Scotland for almost a decade and cost £116m to bring back to life. I was on the first ScotRail passenger service from Edinburgh to Leven, and the two-car train was packed with notepad-toting rail enthusiasts and curious locals. It’s a spectacular journey that cranks into gear crossing the Forth Bridge , that great red iron Victorian levitation that surged from the tumultuous waters in 1890.
The train skirted the Forth’s northern shores, with views opening up across to Edinburgh as I scanned for cetaceans. Then we left the main line to join the new Levenmouth Rail Link, eight miles of freshly-laid track east of Kirkcaldy that includes two new stations. The smooth rails eased through a tree-lined route: the Forth shimmered on one flank, the volcanic hulk of Largo Law on the fringes of the East Neuk on the other.
Half a dozen wind turbines vaulted above the abandoned coalfields, signs of renewal alongside the Highland cow-dappled fields of this fertile corner of Scotland. We were greeted in Leven, 69 minutes after leaving Edinburgh Waverley, by a toot from one of the steam trains at the Fife Heritag.
