Scotrail has to improve urgently
“We are sorry to announce that the 07.23 service to Edinburgh Waverley has been cancelled.”
These will be familiar words for anyone who travels by rail from Dunblane, Bridge of Allan and Stirling.
Most people are reasonable and understand that cancellations and delays can happen on any busy transport network. However, it is simply not good enough for overcrowded, late and cancelled services to be the norm. The current level of service is wholly unacceptable.
Scotrail must take some credit. It has quite remarkably managed to surpass even the lowest expectations in recent times by taking its regularly unreliable and overcrowded services and simply cancelling them, repeatedly. There has been utter chaos at stations as stressed-out staff struggle to find out what is going on in an attempt to keep the understandably frustrated travelling public informed.
Last week, along with my colleague Councillor Alasdair Tollemache, I listened to the concerns of hundreds of weary commuters at two public meetings in Dunblane and Bridge of Allan. Time after time people relayed their awful experience of rail travel, raising concerns about punctuality, unreliability and overcrowding.
I am grateful that Scott Prentice from ScotrRail agreed to front up and attend the meeting. I think it would be fair to say that he was left in no doubt what people think of Scotrail at the moment.
I have repeatedly raised concerns with the cabinet secretary for transport Michael Matheson in recent months and did so again on Tuesday in Parliament. I was, in fact, one of 11 MSPs who took Mr Matheson to task over Scotrail’s performance. It was quite clear that Abellio, the current Scotrail franchisee, is failing commuters up and down the country.
On Monday Scotrail introduced its new timetable. It did so without undertaking any public consultation whatsoever, a decision I cannot quite get my head around. Any timetable change will have winners and losers. However, not even bothering to engage with the communities that they are supposed to serve is a dereliction of duty.
It was clear from the response at both meetings and the correspondence I have received that people are furious about the reduction in direct peak time services between Dunblane and Edinburgh. Many people have built family life around the services and the reduction from three peak time trains to one between 7-8am will have a big impact.
Communities along the Dunblane line endured substantial disruption while the electrification works took place. In return for their patience they were promised “the best railway Scotland’s ever had”. That is not what has yet been delivered.
Delays in the delivery of the new 385 electric rolling stock due to technical problems have not helped the situation. I am concerned that these new trains, that are ready for use now on the Edinburgh-Glasgow services, have not been rolled out on the Dunblane line. While we wait till next May, at the earliest, we will be landed with so-called electric‘happy trains.’They are called this because they appear to be smiling, not because they will resolve the serious overcrowding issues.
ScotRail must up its game and it must do so urgently. If this does not happen then Mr Matheson must strip Abellio of its franchise, and put in place a public sector operator with a focus on public service, rather than profit.