IT’S NOT FARE
TRAIN TICKET RISE OUTRAGE Passengers react with anger to rail price hikes
TRAIN passengers vented their fury yesterday over rail fare rises.
ScotRail have increased the cost of peak-time season tickets and anytime day tickets by 3.2 per cent while off-peak fares have gone up by 2.2 per cent.
In addition, the Kids Go Free scheme has been scrapped.
The new rates kicked in on January 1 and have already angered commuters, who gave their views to the Record.
Graham Hall, 38, from Carluke in Lanarkshire, was about to board a train at Glasgow Central yesterday with his six-year-old daughter Grace.
He said: “The rail service is absolutely atrocious. The customer service feedback is terrible and now they’re charging us more for tickets.
“What are the Scottish Government doing about this?”
Customer service worker Sharon Ryan, 43, said: “These fare increases will have a huge impact on my family. I usually take my kids on the train into Glasgow from our home in Mount Florida because it used to be the cheapest option.”
Painter and decorator Billy McShane, 52, from Barrhead near Glasgow, said: “The train fares are already too expensive. Prices are going up and up and all we see are cancellations and delayed trains. It’s people like us being hit hardest.”
Welder Jamie McAuliffe, 22, said: “The service is already bad so I don’t think it’s right that they are putting the prices up again.”
A Transport Scotland spokesman said: “Two-thirds of the cost of running the railway is met through a Scottish Government subsidy, with the remainder through rail passenger revenues. Any change to rail fares could therefore have a significant impact on the taxpayer.”
Scottish Labour transport spokesman Colin Smyth said: “Commuters are being forced to pay more for train services which are plagued by delays, cancellations and overcrowding.
“Thousands of working people may now be priced out of travelling on Scotland’s railways alongside their children with Kids Go Free now scrapped.”
ScotRail said the price hike is below the UK average of 3.1 per cent. A spokesman added: “About 85 per cent of our revenue comes from fares set by the Scottish Government, who decide how much our customers pay.”