Rail diary makes crisis clear

Recent surveys have suggested satisfaction levels with ScotRail is above the national average.

If that is the case, I can only sympathise with commuters across the rest of the UK who must endure a terrible time getting to work.

Throughout December, I conducted an experiment seeing how many times trains through Rutherglen were late for my journey to Glasgow Central.

December 1: 6.36pm cancelled on way home.

December 2 - 7.30am train five minutes late.

December 5 - 7.42am, one minute late.

December 6 - 6.26pm, two minutes late.

December 7 - 7am, two minutes late. Coming home, the 4.51pm journey was very slow and stopped for five minutes at Bridgeton.

December 14 - 7am, seven minutes late.

I then enjoyed a few days off, thankfully abroad so I didn’t have to deal with ScotRail. On my return, they started where they had finished of.

December 20, my train was four minutes late.

December 21 - 7.11am cancelled, 7.18am arrived at 7.25am. Coming home from Central, the 3.56pm was delayed until 4.50pm. The train to Motherwell was packed but they changed the stops, so the train only stopped at Rutherglen. It was very difficult for people to get off and wait on the next train.

December 22, - 8am, five minutes late.

December 23 - 7.11am, four minutes late.

While I appreciate some of these times are only a few minutes, that can make all the difference to those of us trying to catch connections and this list doesn’t even include the problems I had on my onward journey.

No matter what the government may tell us, ScotRail must do better. Name and address supplied