REFORM Scotland is correct to concentrate minds on the need to look at the Scottish rail network strategically (“The big questions facing the nation’s rail services, Herald editorial, December 27). In its press release, it again asks the pertinent question “Do we really want to be able to reach London from Edinburgh (or Glasgow) in less time than it does to reach Inverness”? It continues: “While rail links to London are important , so too are links within Scotland, links which are sadly lacking at present”.
While the Infrastructure Commission which it proposes could be useful, what is really needed is delivery on some of the promises made in the past few years such as Glasgow/Edinburgh to Inverness in two and three quarter hours by 2012 and the electrification of the lines between all of Scotland’s cities by 2030.
R J Ardern,
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27 Drumdevan Road, Inverness.
AM I alone in finding that ScotRail's performance over the past month has deteriorated to a point that I can no longer depend on the train service to run on time, or at all?
This morning (December 28), friends were returning by train from Elgin to Edinburgh airport to catch an international flight after the Christmas break. We had established that leaving Elgin on the 08.47 train via Inverness would get them to the airport using the Edinburgh Gateway tram link a good three hours ahead of their scheduled flight departure.
On waking at 06.30hrs I checked my ScotRail app and found that there was a "generally good" service running with no reported disruption. Having found a few weeks earlier that the 08.47 train had been cancelled at short notice, I decided to check the specific train, only to find that the 08.47 and the connection from Inverness to Edinburgh were cancelled – ScotRail offered no explanation for this.
Our only option seemed to be to catch the earlier train, so it was a case of waking everyone up early, cancelling the taxi and asking if the company could send a taxi an hour earlier than planned. We made it to the station with time to spare and asked at the ticket office what we should do as the travel tickets were not valid on the earlier train. The booking clerk informed me that my information was incorrect and that the 08.47 was not cancelled. Unless we wanted to buy new tickets, we should travel on that train.
I checked my app again and it showed the 08.47 was cancelled and it continued to show that until after 08 47. My friends were not willing to risk waiting more than an hour for the 08.47 so caught the earlier train and threw themselves at the mercy of the conductors, all of whom were understanding and allowed my friends to travel with their existing tickets.
I have reached the point where I have no confidence in Abellio's ability to provide a reliable, punctual train service and I wonder how long our Government will be willing to accept the abysmal service that ScotRail provides.
Douglas Clark,
88 Duncan Drive, Elgin.
IN the dying embers of 2017, may I make a modest proposal which would recover a valuable asset lost 100 years ago?
Glasgow's Finnieston station closed in early 1917. It lay at the westernmost portal of the three continuous tunnels built on the City and District line which allowed the North British railway company to operate trains from Edinburgh directly to Helensburgh, Milngavie and Hyndland through Queen Street Low Level. Now the North Clyde Line, it has been an important part of the Glasgow suburban railway system for more than 130 years.
Finnieston closed because there was not enough traffic; but a century later this district west of the city centre has been, as frequently reported by The Herald, enjoying a new lease of life along its Argyle Street spine as home to top restaurants and bistro pubs, alongside office developments and hotels clustered round the Scottish Event Campus (formerly the SECC). It also has a sizeable indigenous population.
The station – in the open but below street level, as of old – would have direct access to Argyle Street just west of its junction with Finnieston Street and at its other end to St Vincent Crescent, a mere 300 yards from Exhibition Station on the Argyle Line through Central Low Level and from the “Smartie Tube” walkway to the likes of the Hydro and the Armadillo. It would be of inestimable help to travellers from the east, who have currently to "overshoot" to Partick and come back on an Argyle line train to Exhibition station; and it might encourage people visiting Argyle Street not to use their cars – which would be welcome, given the strain parking is putting on the local community.
There would undoubtedly be headaches for Scotrail Alliance planners over signalling, train paths and “dwell” times at other stations occasioned by the opening of a new station on the central section of a busy line – but the rewards for the community and its visitors would, I believe, greatly outweigh these problems, which I am confident would be seen rather as challenges by rail executives.
Colin MacKay,
Kensington Gate, Glasgow.