Catalogue of misfortune that illustrates our railway difficulties

SPARTAN facilities at train stations and poor customer facilities as quoted by Nigel Waddell (Letters, December 16) I can vouch for.

Last Wednesday I waited at Attadale train station in the evening for a train that never came, for a replacement bus that never stopped, and for a taxi that took an hour and a half to arrive. It is an unmanned station but there is an internal phone connection to customer service in the small booth that passes for a waiting room.

I have to say the staff with whom I was in touch several times were very concerned and empathetic and it is not their fault that the train had a fault, the bus provider was unreliable and the taxi firm was disorientated to both time and place. Apparently the taxi firm, having confirmed it would be with me in 10 to 15 minutes, got the estimated time of arrival at Attadale wrong. It also had my mobile number but made no contact withme.

I have asked for an explanation from Abellio, which I await. It is hard to know where the taxi was coming from if it took an hour and a half to appear.

I was on my way home with a lift from a family member (round trip of 100 miles for them) by the time a caller from Abellio rang me to tell me that the taxi had arrived.

Fortunately it was an unseasonably mild night, and my mobile phone had a signal or it would have been a much more distressing two hours waiting at the side of the road in the dark being soaked with intermittent showers. Had I been frail or inadequately dressed or if it had been very much colder it could have resulted in hypothermia. As it was I felt very vulnerable.

As I mention, the train was cancelled because it had a fault. If aeroplanes had faults as often as the trains they would be falling out of the sky on a regular basis. Irene Munro, 1 Wyvis Crescent, Conon Bridge.