The Courier & Advertiser (Perth and Perthshire Edition)
ScotRail boss fronts up to face music in Markinch
Fifers promised seats, while lessons to be learned from weekend
ScotRail chief executive Alex Hynes insists adding more seats on services between Fife and Edinburgh is his “absolute priority” after facing the fury of local passengers fed up with overcrowding, delays and cancellations.
A series of setbacks combined with the final weekend of the Fringe and the Scotland v France rugby at Murrayfield saw passengers crammed into trains and delays on key routes to and from the capital.
That situation appears to have been the final straw for long-suffering Fifers, which made for an interesting public meeting hosted by local SNP MSP Jenny Gilruth in Markinch last night in response to complaints from constituents.
Mr Hynes said the weekend’s chaos was caused by a train failure at Linlithgow at a time people were trying to get home, which created some “very difficult circumstances”.
But he noted: “I’m sure there are lessons for us to learn, but I do think we have to ask the question about, as a city, whether Edinburgh has the capacity to host all these events at the same time.
“It puts huge stress on the infrastructure we have. There isn’t a spare train in Scotland which isn’t in use but, as we saw on Saturday, it wasn’t enough.”
Dangerously crowded trains continue to be a huge issue, and one woman told how she suffered an epileptic seizure on a hot, packed train in March – yet a guard struggled to reach her.
“I could have died on that service because it was so overcrowded,” she said.
Mr Hynes offered his personal apology and described it as “completely unacceptable”, adding: “It is clearly not the service we aspire to at all.”
Last year Markinch train station was reported as one of the worst performing in Scotland, with only 66.7% of trains arriving within five minutes of their scheduled time, while the 4.34pm Edinburgh to Perth service, which calls in Markinch, was said to be the most overcrowded train in the country.
Mr Hynes said ScotRail had “let people down” between November and May but said significant improvements had been made, although he said more had to be done to regain people’s trust.
When new trains come on stream by the middle of next year, Mr Hynes said most services will have six carriages, while the aim is to have 5,000 additional seats between Edinburgh and Fife per day.
“Everybody should get a seat between here and Edinburgh and at the moment they don’t,” he admitted.
“Adding more seats is my absolute priority.”
The so-called ‘Fife tax’ was also brought up, with Fifers paying on average £5 more per mile for every journey to the capital compared to those travelling from Glasgow.
One woman pointed out how the cost of a monthly ticket to Edinburgh was about £100 more from Markinch than it was from Kirkcaldy, despite being five minutes down the line.
“For the cost of the service, it’s not great,” she added.
Mr Hynes pledged to look into the price anomalies, although he noted that rail fares are set by the Scottish Government and are about 20% cheaper than south of the border.
“Obviously I understand people’s concerns about value for money,” he added.