WELL done for highlighting the long-standing (no pun intended) problem of overcrowding on ScotRail diesel services. However, I feel that the real culprits have not been identified in your article ("Travellers face months of misery on packed trains as carriages cut", The Herald,February 28), nor in your editorial ("Carriage shortage is unnecessary fiasco for ScotRail", The Herald, February 28). The shortage of carriages is because of privatisation and the fact that they are all owned by unaccountable leasing companies.
The aim of privatisation was well intentioned. Trains would be owned by competing leasing companies, thus creating a market in available trains, and the leasing companies would be allowed good profits to allow for the risk that some trains would be surplus to requirements. But the reality from day one has been not to take any risks with speculative purchases. Trains are expensive and it's much more in the interests of shareholders to ensure profits, rather than take unnecessary risks.
For the operators like Abellio, this means that they can't always control the supply of trains, and the high charges (the leasing charges are by the mile) mean they are reluctant to strengthen busy off-peak services if the franchise does not specify this. There are old carriages lying in sidings and freight engines can be borrowed, but these are even more expensive to lease, and also it's not feasible for all train crews to be trained to operate every possible type of train.
This is not a new problem. More than20 years ago I was writing to my MP, complaining that my peak-hour service
from my office had lost half its coaches to bolster summer tourist lines. Before privatisation, these old engines and carriages were brought out of the sidings for the summer, as it didn't cost the nationalised industry anything like as much to use these old assets.
Arthur Homan-Elsy,
55 Deanburn Road, Linlithgow.
WE live in grim rail times in Scotland.
Our premier long-distance routes are served by risible suburban stock. The Borders Railway was underbuilt in infrastructure. The odious practice of station-skipping has become an art form. Now passengers on the Edinburgh-Glasgow line, on what should be one of the prime InterCity services anywhere in the UK, have to stand because there aren’t enough carriages to go round.
These could be plot lines worthy of Enid Blyton: Five Try To Find A Train, or The Secret Seven Save Us From Rail Doom.
For all their inaction, Abellio ScotRail and Transport Scotland and Transport Minister Humza Yousaf could be stranded right now on Kirrin Island.
The snow quite apart, these are awful times to be a rail passenger. They have remained so for the last 29 years, ever since Dinky Toy trains replaces the real stuff in 1989.
So we have a fiasco over carriage shortages? (Your leader: Carriage shortage is unnecessary fiasco for ScotRail, Wednesday 28 February). Mr Yousaf pleads that he didn’t have a crystal ball that could forecast this carriage shortage. Pull the other one please.
Problems with the incoming Hitachi-built 385s were seen months and months ago. It shouldn’t have been beyond the wit of Abellio ScotRail, Transport Scotland and Mr Yousaf to formulate action. To plead “shortage of trains” just doesn’t wash.
Mr Yousaf promises jam tomorrow with news that the first of the high speed trains enters service in May. Yes, but when will these trains run in squadron service? Not until 2019..
So here’s advance notice of another fiasco, though there’s still time to avoid it. I hear that the seats of the incoming 385s are as comfortable as sitting on cardboard. Is timeous action going to be taken? Or will Abellio ScotRail, Transport Scotland and Mr Yousaf all act in a surprised manner when this next fiasco surfaces?
Gordon Casely,
Westerton Cottage, Crathes, Kincardineshire.
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