I WAS interested to read that the RMT was expressing concern about Abellio’s cost-cutting exercises ("Scotrail ‘cutting back’ on toilet paper and soap", The Herald, October 12).
I fully understand where it is coming from, as ScotRail could not be bothered to turn up to an important transport meeting held in Thankerton about linking rail and bus services in Clydesdale last week (October 7).
Abellio has a poor record here in Clydesdale, as several years ago, it took away the direct services from Lanark to Dalmuir as well as the half-hourly services to Hamilton and Dalmuir. Instead passengers have to change either at Motherwell for Hamilton or Cambuslang for Dalmuir. This retrograde decision has impacted on thousands of travellers each year.
Your article about a variety of issues from treatment of staff to toilet maintenance confirms my view that Abellio is totally unfitted to run our railways.
Therefore I was appalled at the failure of the Scottish Government to take ScotRail back into public ownership, thus losing the opportunity to save public money as well as providing a better service to the Scottish people.
Ed Archer, Lanark.
EXACTLY which part of Abellio ScotRail (ASR) doesn’t understand the term “fair fares”?
On Saturday (October 12), I booked fares in advance – and was charged £8 for a single fare Glasgow Queen Street to Stonehaven for Saturday, November 9.
At the same time, I’m travelling to Glasgow this Wednesday (October 16), and for this I was charged £46.60 return. That’s an add-on of more than £15 each way compared to the £8 single fare.
A railway contact tells me: “Your Wednesday trip is during the school holidays. Abellio raises its fares then”.
Surely not?
But if not, why the gross disparity?
I’ve long since given up on ASR as being a reliable holder of the ScotRail franchise. Throughout its time at the ScotRail helm, Abellio has done little else but proffer excuses and offer promises.
It presents a closed face to us travellers, and offers us passengers no comfort at all. But when opportunity strikes for charging eye-wateringly high fares, it gets stuck right in there.
The motto of the chief of Clan Matheson is “Do and hope”. It’s high time that Transport Secretary Michael Matheson took cognizance of the slogan of his chief. When will he do something, and when can we long-distance passengers hope for fairer fares?
Gordon Casely, Crathes.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereLast Updated:
Report this comment Cancel