ScotRail bosses announce more journey delays

PLANS to speed up journeys on Scotland’s busiest rail route are facing more delays.

ScotRail managing director Alex Hynes yesterday revealed the flagship project to cut journey times between Edinburgh and Glasgow to only 42 minutes will not be completed until next year.

The project, estimated at £742million, has been beset by a raft of delays and cost overruns.

During a Holyrood committee meeting yesterday, Mr Hynes was criticised for refusing to apologise to passengers for the company’s performance on punctuality – but did admit that improvements are needed.

And he vowed to consider moves to end ‘split ticketing’ loopholes, where journeys can be more expensive if customers do not buy two separate tickets.

Mr Hynes said he would ‘like to deliver’ journeys of 42 minutes between Scotland’s main cities by the end of the year but admitted it would not be every service. It has also emerged the new refurbished high-speed trains ScotRail is delivering are unlikely to be up and running by the contractual date in June.

Mr Hynes told MSPs a delay in refitting the vehicles meant it was his ‘aspiration’ that the first of the new trains would begin service in July.

However, he stressed he was ‘not in a position to give a firm date’ for this.

He said: ‘We wanted to go above and beyond the contractual date of June to deliver something for the timetable change in May. This is now unlikely.’

He also told MSPs there were still two outstanding issues with the new electric Hitachi trains which will run between Edinburgh Waverley and Glasgow Queen Street. He said: ‘It’s my aspiration that we put the first train into service in July but that is contingent upon the heavy overhauler producing me a train which is fully refurbished.

‘We’re expecting to introduce the Hitachi trains in the coming months. In terms of the journey time, we would like to deliver 42minute journeys on the new electric trains for this December.

‘It won’t be every service at 42 minutes for this December, that comes the following year. That is dependent on having the rolling stock from Hitachi to deliver.’

Earlier this week, it was revealed that ScotRail was hit with a record £1.6million of penalties for failing to hit most of its performance targets.

Official figures showed the firm’s average performance during the fourth quarter resulted in it hitting 22 out of 34 areas in the first months of 2018.

Asked directly by Labour MSP Colin Smyth if he would apologise to passengers for the performance, Mr Hynes said only that research showed high levels of customer satisfaction.

Referring to the penalties, Mr Hynes said: ‘One of the reasons the penalties are that large is because the regime is really tough. The Scottish Government sets very high standards and that’s why we are top spot for the UK for punctuality and service quality.’

Afterwards, Mr Smyth said: ‘The refusal by Alex Hynes and Humza Yousaf to apologise for plummeting performance on trains shows ScotRail and the SNP Government are in denial.

‘Two thirds of targets are being missed and behind those targets are hard-pressed passengers being hit by increasing fares.’

‘Performance could be better’