REGARDING the correspondence on the need for fairer rail ticket prices (Letters, July 24), may I add my own experience the very same day?

The 14.52 Aberdeen-London Virgin Trains East Coast was suddenly cancelled, and rather than take the replacement bus for my journey of Stonehaven-Edinburgh, I opted to buy a ticket for the following Abellio ScotRail train. I’d planned to work on the two-hour journey, and the bus would have been hopeless for this.

Let’s compare prices and conditions:

1) I paid £20.35 for a second class ticket on the 1619 Stonehaven-Edinburgh ScotRail service – using a train on which travel amenities are always second class.

2 Had I travelled Virgin Trains, my first class ticket was £16.50, providing everything that an Abellio ScotRail train doesn’t – comfort, quietness, legroom, two toilets per carriage, and free meals and refreshments at seat.

The purists will argue that it cost me more because I travelled on the day. The same purists might like to weigh in comparative costs against the comfort of a “real” train such as Virgin.

Abellio ScotRail trains have long been acknowledged as one-size-fits-all, suburban trains on what should be premier long-distance routes.

Gordon Casely,

Westerton Cottage, Crathes, Kincardineshire.