If Hawick was as lovely as you're suggesting, then why didn't you get together and prevent all this industrial vandalism taking place. There's nothing like people power.... Why was BR allowed to destroy all your infrastructure and leave you without transport? You sat back and let it happen.......
Not much you can do when it's an act of Parliament. The annoying thing is seeing railway lines still in existence running north and west from Inverness that have virtually no towns of any decent size and they still kept their lines.