SNP RAIL FARCE TO LAST FOR MONTHS

Outrage as Sturgeon admits savage cuts to nationalised trains may continue until 2023

SAVAGE cuts to rail services in Scotland could stay in place until at least 2023.

The massive reduction in services announced on Wednesday is in danger of dragging on into next year unless a pay dispute with drivers is resolved.

Nicola Sturgeon was yesterday forced to apologise to passengers after ScotRail announced it will axe one in three of its services from Monday, just weeks after it was nationalised.

But she admitted fewer than half of the train drivers needed to restore ScotRail’s full timetable will be ready to start work by the end of this year.

It raises the prospect that the emergency timetable, which scraps more than 600 trains a day and ends many services several hours earlier than normal, could be in place well into next year.

Fears were raised yesterday that it could

take up to 18 months to train enough drivers to allow a full return to normal. Miss Sturgeon said it was ‘vital’ services get back to normal ‘as quickly as possible’ – but could not say how long this would take.

Scottish Conservative leader Douglas Ross said: ‘Just last month, at Queen Street Station, the First Minister proclaimed that nationalising ScotRail was a “new beginning”, that it would deliver “a railway for the nation”. Yet passengers are now paying more than ever in fares and getting the worst service anyone has seen in a generation.

‘Seven weeks into nationalisation, it is already proving a disaster. Just like the ferries, as soon as this government steps in to try to sort things out, problems get even worse.’

ScotRail will introduce the new timetable from next week following a wave of cancellations due to drivers refusing to work overtime and rest days amid a pay dispute with the Aslef trade union.

The cuts have been blamed on a shortage of around 130 drivers. Scottish Conservative

transport spokesman Graham Simpson said industry sources have told him it could take 18 months to train the 130 drivers needed to restore the full timetable.

At First Minister’s Questions, Mr Simpson said: ‘We are running a railway that is completely reliant on people working on their day off. That is completely crazy.

‘It takes 18 months to train a driver and we’ve got 130 of them to get through the system. So will the First Minister admit that it will take until at least 2024 before ScotRail is off this emergency timetable?’

Miss Sturgeon said she did not accept that, but confirmed ScotRail hopes an additional 38 drivers will be trained by the end of the summer, rising to 55 by the end of the year and 100 ‘after that’.

She added: ‘It is vital to get the timetable back to normal as quickly as possible, and I expect ScotRail to review the temporary arrangements regularly. Indeed it is due to be reviewed formally on June 3.’

David Simpson, ScotRail’s service delivery director, said he hopes the timetable is in force for ‘as short as possible’ but admitted it depends on progress with pay talks.

When asked yesterday by Mr Ross to

apologise to the thousands of passengers facing disruption, Miss Sturgeon initially said only that she does ‘always express apologies’ to anybody not getting the standard of public service that they deserve.

When told by Mr Ross she had failed to provide a clear apology to passengers, Miss Sturgeon said: ‘I started my answer by saying I always take the opportunity to apologise to any member of the public in Scotland who doesn’t get from a public service, whether that is the railway or any other public service, the standard of service they have a right to expect.

‘That includes those who are being disrupted right now because of the temporary timetable being put in place by ScotRail.’

Figures show that, while more than 600 services will be cut between now and next week, the true scale of the cut is 1,000 services when compared to pre-pandemic levels. Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar condemned ‘the biggest cuts to rail services in nearly half a century’.

Miss Sturgeon’s spokesman was unable to confirm when the 130 additional drivers will be in place to allow the return to a full timetable. He also said he was ‘not aware’ of whether ministers had agreed to the new timetable.