COMMENT MICHAEL ALEXANDER

Forced to stand on a claustrophobic three-coach train from Cupar to Edinburgh a few weeks ago, en route to the rugby at Murrayfield, I didn’t think the service could get much worse than it did when ScotRail informed me via Twitter that the reason there were no extra coaches was because they were only targeting “key services”.

“Is the Dundee to Edinburgh line not a ‘key service’?” I inquired as a young girl in my coach passed out in the heat and hit her head off the floor.

However, a couple of weeks later, ScotRail excelled themselves as I tried to make my way home from a Saturday trip to Aberdeen.

I already knew the last train home to Fife – the 21:30 to Edinburgh – had been cancelled. I went for the 21:04 instead. However, when I arrived, I discovered it too had been scrapped due to “staff shortages”.

Passengers were told to get on a replacement bus.

However, minutes later a ScotRail man told everyone to get off because a train – or should that be a driver – had been ‘found’.

Great news! That was until the ‘replacement’ train left without its passengers just as we arrived at the platform – despite the ScotRail man, who told us to get off the bus, radioing ahead ordering it not to leave.

Let’s just say it kicked off at the station at that point!

A cosy bus journey to Dundee via Angus and the Mearns followed, then another replacement bus from Dundee to Fife – but at least I secured my £36.40 full fare refund for being more than two hours late!