The route I am proposing is a scenic route from the central belt to the highlands with a lot of freight traffic and passenger traffic.
The route begins at Grangemouth where the DRS yard & refinery lines join the main line and takes a run up to Stirling where the 13 miles of reopened branch line from Stirling to Alloa and up to Kincardine and Longannet Power Station where DBS deliver coal trains. From Striling the line goes through Dunblane, Blackford, Gleaneagles, Dunning up to the junction where the Edinburgh line joins before entering Perth.
I am lucky enough as where I work is where the railway line is behind the buiding and I get to see mainly passenger trains, usualy the two-car Class 158 and the three-car Class 170s and at 10am is the HST Virgin/Stagecoach train.
The freight trains at 9am-ish is the Freightliner Cement train with Cargowaggons and tankers and, around 1:30pm to 2pm-ish, is the DRS Stobart Asda train with some Hoyer ISO tanks. There is another DRS, all Stobart train but do not know where this train runs and on Saturday, there is a heavy tanker train along with a yellow pipe train, two a month and numerous work trains.
At Perth is where the line splits to go to either Dundee/Aberdeen or up to Inverness, which is the line we're going to go up once out of Perth. The line will follow the A9 trunk road and even follows the older A9 road and passes through many small villages, such as Stanley, Luncarty, Murthly, Dunkeld, Ballinluig, Pitlochry, and a steep climb from Pitlochry before entering Drummochter Pass to Dalwhinnie and over Schloct Summit and through Aviemore and on to Inverness.
I have travelled the Perth to Glasgow Queen Street but have not really travelled on the trains, only get to watch them at work and when I get home. The Edinburgh line runs right behind my house at Bridge Of Earn.
I have seen a lot of Class 37s on work trains and Class 66s on work trains. The main power around this area is DRS and have even seen their brand new Class 68s.
The Direct Rail Service's Tesco Express would make a good add-on for all routes. However, DRS have the Malcolm Exress with the brand new 50 foot containers and finally John G Russell Group train, ASDA and Hoyer containers are in the mix at times. The intermodal trains would be a good match on all UK routes for TS. DRS are using lowliner wagons and megafret wagons too. DRS did have two units painted in Stobart livery and one unit in Malcolm livery.
