Rail ticket giveaway hits the buffers

Troubled ScotRail was under fire from angry customers again yesterday – after trying to give away tickets worth £1 million.

Travellers were left infuriated after the firm’s website repeatedly crashed, crawled to a stop, and ran out of tickets on certain lines within a couple of hours.

Critics claimed the firm, which desperately needs good PR after a series of setbacks, had scored another own goal.

Launching the giveaway, ScotRail promised £1m of free off-peak day-return tickets on “a huge range of routes to Scotland’s most magical destinations”.

Travellers were told the tickets could be claimed between yesterday and September 15, adding: “It’s our way of saying thank you and your way to see a little bit more of Scotland”.

But ScotRail’s website was hit within hours by angry users, including Ross Smith who asked: “ScotRail can’t you do anything right. Your ticket giveaway site is awful. Crashing every two mins.”

Scottish Actor Colin McCredie weighed in: “Availability is laughable, none of the routes I could have used were available.”

A few passengers were a little more forgiving of ScotRail, however.

James Mitchell said: “I was too slow to obtain a (useful to me) ticket in the ScotRail giveaway, but what a nice initiative. It’s the small things sometimes.”

A ScotRail Alliance spokesman said: “The level of demand we’ve seen is absolutely unprecedented. We have been giving tickets away at a rate of three per second.

“Already over 30,000 claims have been processed, and we thank our customers for their patience. It will be worth the wait.”

ScotRail is giving away £1m of free off-peak day-return tickets.