TRANSPORT Minister Derek Mackay hailed a “revolution in rail” in Scotland as he announced plans for 200 new services from 2018.

The timetable improvements have been enabled after the Scottish Government decided to retain 13 additional Class 170 diesel trains beyond the terms of their current leases, which were due to end on 2018.

As a result, there will be 39 additional carriages - equivalent to 20,000 extra seats - available across the ScotRail network.

ScotRail’s current timetable runs 2,300 services per day, but from 2018 there will be more trains for passengers in Tayside, Stirlingshire, Perthshire Aberdeenshire.

There will also be increased peak capacity across Fife and the Borders, relieving some of the pressure on commuter services, along with more commuter options linking local towns between Glasgow and Edinburgh via Cumbernauld and Falkirk.

It will also coincide with the introduction of the first Hitachi Class 385 electric trains, which are due to be rolled out in the Central Belt from late 2017, and new high-speed intercity trains.

Transport Minister, Derek Mackay, said: “We have initiated a revolution in rail services across Scotland; from 2018 passengers will benefit from more seats, more services and faster journey times as a direct result of the increased funding that we are putting into the rail network in Scotland.”

Phil Verster, Managing Director of Abellio ScotRail said: “This is a really significant moment in our mission to transform Scotland’s railway. In three years time, the service that we provide to our customers will be unrecognisable.

"Our new electric fleet will be running between Glasgow and Edinburgh, our High Speed trains will be linking our seven cities and, thanks to this announcement today [tue], we will have hundreds more services and thousands more seats available to customers across Scotland – particularly in Aberdeen, the North East and Fife."

Changes include a new half hourly service from Edinburgh to Glasgow via Cumbernauld, Stepps and Gartcosh, and a minimum of at least one service per hour from Perth to Edinburgh and Glasgow.

Passengers in Inverness will also see their average journey time to Glasgow and Edinburgh cut by 10 minutes, with trains running every hour to one of the two cities.

Dr John McCormick, chairman of the Scottish Association of Public Transport, said: "Our association has long advocated fast, regular interval train services throughout the Scottish rail network.

"The new timetables to be introduced by Abellio ScotRail will achieve this, and are a major step towards giving Scotland a world-class rail system."

However, Liberal Democrat MSP Tavish Scott raised concerns about the age of the rolling stock that will be used for some of the services.

He said: "People in the north and north-east will want some strong guarantees about the 40-year-old rolling stock that will be used for their connections to the central belt. People will be concerned that the Scottish Government is treating the north as second class.

"Reliability issues have plagued travellers in south-west England on these trains for a decade. Passengers describe the trains as providing 'third world cattle truck conditions'.

"Mechanical failures in these trains have caused chaos on the Great Western Railway.

"A breakdown on the single-track parts of the Scottish routes will cause huge disruption.

"Travellers will want to know that these 40-year-old trains have had more than a paint job before being put to work in Scotland."

Scottish Green transport spokeswoman Sarah Beattie-Smith branded the changes "timid".

Ms Beattie-Smith, the lead Green candidate for the South of Scotland region, said: "The SNP seems to think that tinkering with train service numbers is enough to fix Scotland's broken public transport system.

"Don't get me wrong - new rail services are all well and good, but this policy falls far short from the 'rail revolution' the Scottish Government wants to brand it as.

"To properly support the people who are currently isolated by our poor and expensive public transport, we need to do much, much more.

"We don't need another four years of timid policy-making, but bold reform that will create a sustainable public transport system run by the people, for the people. The Scottish Greens are committed to driving this long overdue reform forward."