Appalling Abellio

So Abellio Scotrail has been fined £1.6m after failing performances in 22 out of 34 categories? I’m not surprised.

A family member, a young mother with an eight-monthold daughter, journeyed on the 09:40 Haymarket to Perth train on Monday this week. She e-mailed me: “Managed to gain a space for the buggy, and right next to the baby-change loo too.

“Except that the toilet was locked ‘out of order’, and the other loo had no changing facilities. So I had to do the honours in the buggy in the middle of the carriage.

“Oh, and no bin, so we all had to sit with the dirty nappy for the remainder of the journey.

“Such Scotrail fun all round!”

And the reaction of Abellio Scotrail to the eye-watering £1.6mfine?aspokesmanchirrups that it’s not a fine at all, simply a donation into a reinvestment fund to enhance Scotland’s railway. Aye, right.

Clean, working toilets are basic to any 21st-century railway, and if Abellio Scotrail doesn’t understand this simple point, I fear we’ll get nowhere on larger issues, such as solving the Hitachi 385 problems, introducing high-speed 125s before 2020, gaining tourist trains on West Highland lines, simplifying our ticketing system or banning the iniquitous practice of station-skipping.

And where stands Transport Scotland in this mess of record fines? Transport Scotland is the organisation supposed to oversee the Scotrail franchise. So how and why has it allowed Abellio Scotrail to descend into this mess?

GORDON CASELY

Crathes, Kincardineshire