Bloodycontrary discussed the merits of good transport with a crowd in Belfast this morning:

Good morning, everybody! It's great to be here talking to you. It may be a chilly morning, but what a beautiful morning it is.

And hopefully I can make it sunnier for you by talking to you about railways.

Northern Ireland has to some extent fallen behind the rest of the United Kingdom, and Europe generally, on the rail front. And Alliance wants to change that.

We want to electrify all the lines in Northern Ireland - in consultation with Ireland for cross-border lines - so we can bring our railways into the 21st century.

This has many benefits. We all know how serious a problem climate change is, and for obvious reasons electric trains are much more environmentally friendly than diesel trains. But they're also more efficient; it's an up-front cost of some £150m to upgrade the lines, but the reduction in running cost is a staggering 20%. It's an upgrade Northern Ireland really needs, and quite an obvious solution when you think about it.

And here in Belfast we can do a lot more. Many of you will have been on holiday over the summer. How did you get to the airport? Taxi? Car? Bus? Almost certainly one of those. But why not get a train? We already have a rail link between the city and the airport, but for some reason it is not used.

We want to reopen the 10-15 mile stretch of track and add a long overdue rail link between the airport, Belfast, and the rest of the country.

Speaking of Belfast, we're also interested in looking at a light rail system for the city generally. Dublin's Luas and Manchester's Metrolink provide good examples for the type of thing we want to see in Belfast. Alliance at the very least will conduct a feasibility study to see how and where such a light rail system would be best placed, as we believe it would be a real boon to the city.

Thank you all for listening to me - and remember to vote Alliance!