Edinburgh-Alloa evening service seems to have disappeared until the timetable change.
It was "starting" from Stirling this evening - which isn't much help if you are anywhere before there looking to reach Alloa.
Edinburgh-Alloa evening service seems to have disappeared until the timetable change.
this is the proud boast of Abellio Scotrail used frequently by them in the media and repeated by Alex Hynes and Transport Scotland at every opportunity.
Is this a statement of fact or merely an aspiration ? If so on what basis is it made or is it just a meaningless slogan ?
Given the E / G electrification and Stirling Dunblane seems to be the justification for this and it will remain to be seen if it is the transformation of the service we were all promised , it is only a central belt improvement.
As Scotland’s railway extends beyond that area is this a misleading statement?
Given my own commuting experience under Abellio is poor and potentially to become poorer , I think it is misleading. Some will feel otherwise I know . But from a purely geographical perspective with other parts of the country seeing no investment should a nationwide statement be made.
I wonder what the advertising standards folks would make of it ?
Leaving aside that , to make such a Trump like statement just serves as a lightning rod to your critics when reality in Scotland is far from the claim.
Given every journey this week so far has been either overcrowded shortformed delayed or cancelled and usually a combination of more than one of the above. I am not minded to cut Scotrail any slack. To repeat this claim just serves to irritate and reinforce the nonsense of this tag line.
It was "starting" from Stirling this evening - which isn't much help if you are anywhere before there looking to reach Alloa.
There is no trolley on my Thurso-Inverness train this afternoon #AbsolutelyDisastrous
4 hours without "a brew"....not good.
Don't British people die if they go that long without one?
Absolutely agreed Stopper. I'm amazed at the nonchalance on display by some of the borderline ScotRail apologists here; anyone who commutes on the Dunblane/Alloa-Edinburgh route wouldn't enjoy the daily misery of cancellations they facing being classed as an "inconvenience".‘Absolutely disastrous’ may be over the top, which is understandable given my frustration of sub-par rail service for around a decade. However, the current situation far exceeds ‘inconvenient’.
‘Absolutely disastrous’ may be over the top, which is understandable given my frustration of sub-par rail service for around a decade. However, the current situation far exceeds ‘inconvenient’.
Nice to see that the ScotRail Defence Force are out flapping to defend ScotRail as if they are family. The situation right now, for whatever reason, is totally unacceptable. This follows around a decade of sub-par service too. The railway is allowed to be criticised, some people seem to fail to grasp that
By all means criticise, but if you want to throw around the kind of emotive language seen on such threads then there's got to be more meat on the bones than the current problems have.
Firstly, the "Scotland's best ever railway" obviously doesn't refer to right now - it's a slogan to describe the new timetable (e.g. double the frequency from Falkirk Grahamston to Edinburgh, significantly more seats on most journeys in the Edinburgh/ Glasgow/ Stirling axis, lots of new trains, lots of new electrification).
To bring all that about requires a certain degree of short term disruption - lines temporarily closed etc. No TOC runs with a huge surplus of staff, so when you need to go on a course for a few days to learn how to use new EMUs then of course that's going to disrupt things.
Some of the problems are ScotRail's - no TOC seems to want to grasp the nettle of Sunday overtime, so I don't want to particularly scapegoat them for this - all TOCs seem to rely on a certain amount of staff goodwill to run services on the Sabbath - but some are outwith their control. Part of the problems are caused by delays in getting the HSTs (Wabtec) and the 385s (Hitatchi/ Unions), which ScotRail have been caught in the middle of.
But, seriously, look at this from elsewhere in the UK... I'd suggest that all the electrification/ new trains/ frequency increases/ longer services outweigh some of the problems on such threads (the retimed Dunblane - Edinburgh service leaves at 06:58 rather than a couple of minutes after seven? a handful of services were capped a couple of stops from the terminus so they could be on time for the return journey? the Twitter feed is toeing the party line when providing information and doesn't say anything particularly critical of the TOC? the doubling of frequency on some lines which allows existing services to be speeded up means some minor direct links are cut to facilitate faster services to bigger places?).
I'm not saying that all of those things are great, but... try commuting in the rest of the UK and tell me that Scotland is hard done by.
Or compare the new timetable to any one from the 1980s or 1990s and tell me that this won't be Scotland's best railway.
Your idea of "sub par service" may mean a service that doesn't match your perfect expectations but things have been continually getting better in Scotland since privatisation - people commuting to cities like Manchester would laugh at the kind of things seen as "absolutely disastrous" north of the border!
Ah, we’re back to the old “it’s better than it was in the 80s line”. Completely ignoring that demand and usage is much higher these days. That’s before you get to the much used “it’s better than some places in England” line.
As I said earlier in the thread, this may be, and probably is Scotland’s best ever railway. However, it is nowhere near good enough.
I’ve had to suffer for years with cancellations, short-formings, skip-stopping, delays and being packed onto trains like sardines. I am reliably told that my local station (Linlithgow) has more passengers commuting to Edinburgh than anywhere else in Scotland (other than from Glasgow). Yet it’s deemed acceptable by ScotRail and their defence squad on this forum that Linlithgow-Edinburgh is served by 2tph of packed out 7/8-car trains, and 2tph 3-car 385s from Cumbernauld. There is absolutely no way to defend that.
But it’s okay to leave Linlithgow with a sub-par Edinburgh service and an effective halving of it’s Westbound services (which has been described as odd by the ScotRail staff at the station) and it’s okay to inconvenience Dunblane and BofA passengers at peak time.
I will never understand anyone who think it’s their duty to jump to ScotRail’s defence no matter what.
By all means criticise, but if you want to throw around the kind of emotive language seen on such threads then there's got to be more meat on the bones than the current problems have.
Firstly, the "Scotland's best ever railway" obviously doesn't refer to right now - it's a slogan to describe the new timetable (e.g. double the frequency from Falkirk Grahamston to Edinburgh, significantly more seats on most journeys in the Edinburgh/ Glasgow/ Stirling axis, lots of new trains, lots of new electrification).
To bring all that about requires a certain degree of short term disruption - lines temporarily closed etc. No TOC runs with a huge surplus of staff, so when you need to go on a course for a few days to learn how to use new EMUs then of course that's going to disrupt things.
Some of the problems are ScotRail's - no TOC seems to want to grasp the nettle of Sunday overtime, so I don't want to particularly scapegoat them for this - all TOCs seem to rely on a certain amount of staff goodwill to run services on the Sabbath - but some are outwith their control. Part of the problems are caused by delays in getting the HSTs (Wabtec) and the 385s (Hitatchi/ Unions), which ScotRail have been caught in the middle of.
But, seriously, look at this from elsewhere in the UK... I'd suggest that all the electrification/ new trains/ frequency increases/ longer services outweigh some of the problems on such threads (the retimed Dunblane - Edinburgh service leaves at 06:58 rather than a couple of minutes after seven? a handful of services were capped a couple of stops from the terminus so they could be on time for the return journey? the Twitter feed is toeing the party line when providing information and doesn't say anything particularly critical of the TOC? the doubling of frequency on some lines which allows existing services to be speeded up means some minor direct links are cut to facilitate faster services to bigger places?).
I'm not saying that all of those things are great, but... try commuting in the rest of the UK and tell me that Scotland is hard done by.
Or compare the new timetable to any one from the 1980s or 1990s and tell me that this won't be Scotland's best railway.
Your idea of "sub par service" may mean a service that doesn't match your perfect expectations but things have been continually getting better in Scotland since privatisation - people commuting to cities like Manchester would laugh at the kind of things seen as "absolutely disastrous" north of the border!
Try travelling in Greater Manchester, where a full service has been offered on just 5 days out of 7 for the past 4 months, the working timetable is broadly worse than it was at the start of this year and there will be no improvements this December. Reliability has fallen through the floor, capacity increases promised since before the start of the current franchise haven't been made available, part of the service enhancement plans have been written off with the blessing of Transport for the North and a botched timetable change on a large scale was caused by the late arrival of new rolling stock and 2 1/2 years of electrification delay. Unlike in the Central Belt, driver training is yet to begin on new rolling stock - and testing of the delayed electrified lines hasn't started.Your idea of "sub par service" may mean a service that doesn't match your perfect expectations but things have been continually getting better in Scotland since privatisation - people commuting to cities like Manchester would laugh at the kind of things seen as "absolutely disastrous" north of the border!
Your general point is a fair one it was never going to painless and there are winners and losers. But what was apparent to those at the meeting was this dilution of service and the loss of the one train at 7.30 that gets the commuters into work at a sensible time was planned a long time ago. But in the interim we were repeated told put up with the works and come the new timetable it will be transformed. The reality is it’s worse. So it was mis sold and knowingly so. That never goes down well when your feel conned. The reaction is perfectly valid and I think accepted by Scotrail as justified.
If only the benefits could be sprinkled a bit more widespread and not just the headlines of the E G route.
Ah, we’re back to the old “it’s better than it was in the 80s line”. Completely ignoring that demand and usage is much higher these days
As I said earlier in the thread, this may be, and probably is Scotland’s best ever railway. However, it is nowhere near good enough.
I am reliably told that my local station (Linlithgow) has more passengers commuting to Edinburgh than anywhere else in Scotland (other than from Glasgow). Yet it’s deemed acceptable by ScotRail and their defence squad on this forum that Linlithgow-Edinburgh is served by 2tph of packed out 7/8-car trains, and 2tph 3-car 385s from Cumbernauld. There is absolutely no way to defend that
With twaddle like that its no wonder some people choose to defend ScotRail.
Try travelling in Greater Manchester, where a full service has been offered on just 5 days out of 7 for the past 4 months, the working timetable is broadly worse than it was at the start of this year and there will be no improvements this December. Reliability has fallen through the floor, capacity increases promised since before the start of the current franchise haven't been made available, part of the service enhancement plans have been written off with the blessing of Transport for the North and a botched timetable change on a large scale was caused by the late arrival of new rolling stock and 2 1/2 years of electrification delay. Unlike in the Central Belt, driver training is yet to begin on new rolling stock - and testing of the delayed electrified lines hasn't started.
None of this is to say that the problems in the Central Belt are acceptable - they're not. But there is a degree of confidence that there is a way forward from them. As many have pointed out, the problems at Northern are much more intractable.
Fares are also increasing at a much slower rate. The CDR between Edinburgh and Glasgow is only going up 2%. My local CDR and SDR fares are going up by 4.9%.
Alex Hynes being called in to see the Minister. Might be why he had a hang dog expression on his face on the 0715 from Waverley to Queen St this morning, in Standard Class!
Alex Hynes being called in to see the Minister. Might be why he had a hang dog expression on his face on the 0715 from Waverley to Queen St this morning, in Standard Class!
I resisted the urge to sit opposite and ask if I should plan to drive to work on Monday...