The town lost its rail service in 1969, when, as part of the Beeching Axe, the Waverley Route from Carlisle to Edinburgh via Hawick railway station was closed. It was then said to be the farthest large town from a railway station in the United Kingdom, but this changed as a result of the opening of the Borders Railway, which in 2015 reopened part of the former Waverley Route to Tweedbank, near Galashiels. Regular buses serve the railway station at Carlisle, away. Reconnecting Hawick to the Borders Railway would require reinstatement of a further approximately 17 miles of the former Waverley Route from Hawick to Tweedbank station via Hassendean, St Boswells, and Melrose, and refurbishment of the four-arch Ale Water viaduct near New Belses. Hawick station was on the north bank of the river Teviot, below Wilton Hill Terrace, with a now demolished viaduct (near the Mart Street bridge) carrying the route south towards Carlisle. Waverley Walk in Hawick is a footpath along the former railway route, north-eastward from the former station site near Teviotdale Leisure Centre. A feasibility study is now underway to evaluate the possible reopening of the southern section of the former Waverley railway to link the Borders Railway terminus at Tweedbank through Hawick to Carlisle.