FULL STEAM AHEAD

It’s all change for Scotland’s railways in 2015, with passengers finally en route to a better destination

Alan Cochrane champions the new age of the train

Trains are in the news, I’m pleased to say. The reborn Waverley Line from Edinburgh through the Borders is nearing completion. Later this year the ScotRail franchise, run for the past ten years by First Group, passes to Abellio, a subsidiary of the Dutch state-owned rail company. And by the time you read this, the East Coast route, state-run in recent years, will have gone back to the private sector under a Stagecoach/Virgin banner.

Why am I so pleased to see rail travel so prominent once again? It’s just that, speaking from personal experience as a regular user of the East Coast trains over many years, I can only say that the service I’ve received has been bloody marvellous. It really has improved so dramatically in recent decades that I’m astonished when I hear of friends and colleagues flying from Edinburgh to London.

The staff in every department, from the lucky lads driving the thing, to the platform, management and catering staff, have all – in my experience – been first class.

So, while I wish Stagecoach and Virgin every success, especially in their desire to improve journey times and introduce new fares and new rolling stock, I can promise them the most intense scrutiny to make sure they match, at the very least, the service offered by their predecessors. And given that I’ve never heard any complaints about East Coast staff, I do hope we’ll see the same familiar faces on that route in future.

However, the main change facing most of us doesn’t come until later this year when Abellio takes over the ScotRail franchise. Change is much needed. Attention first and foremost must be given to the service provided north of the Central Belt. Yes, I know it’s ridiculous that it still takes the best part of an hour to get between Glasgow and Edinburgh, but with four trains an hour during peak periods, the commuters there are doing not too badly.

Compare it with what’s on offer in terms of service, timetabling and rolling stock on most of the trains between the Central Belt and Inverness and Aberdeen; it is wholly unsuitable and, frankly, unacceptable. The trains are too small and too cramped, with woeful catering and toilet facilities and not nearly enough luggage space. Abellio promises to have new trains on these routes by 2018, but that’s too long to wait for an overdue upgrade. I’m pleased to see that there is a five-year review period in this franchise which means that if Abellio doesn’t keep its promises it can be turfed out in 2020. We passengers must keep up the pressure to ensure they stick to their guarantees.

I’m not suggesting that improvement will be easy – Scotland has a great deal of difficult terrain and many remote communities. But our rail network should be a vital and widely used part of our infrastructure.

Incredibly, the problems seem to persist down the decades. When I was a young reporter in the Perth office of the Dundee Courier forty years ago the big local issue was the inordinate length of time trains took to travel from the Fair City to Edinburgh. There has been a minuscule improvement but it still takes an hour and twenty minutes to do those forty miles. That is simply not good enough.

It really is time that these new operators took the strain out of taking the train.