ScotRail offers compensation – but not here in Dumbarton and Lomond
Scotrail boss Alex Hynes who refuses to agree with Jackie Baillie MSP that compensation should be granted for bad service.
By Bill Heaney
Dumbarton and Lomond MSP Jackie Baillie is furious at ScotRail’s decision not to compensate passengers from Dumbarton, Vale of Leven and Helensburgh for their unacceptable service from local stations over the past three months.
As the dates when the compensatory travel announced by Alex Hynes, the £250,000 a year boss of ScotRail Alliance, creep ever closer, Ms Baillie has decided to jolt his memory.
And to appeal yet again for a fair deal for her constituents.
She told The Democrat: ““This compensation scheme is disappointing for passengers travelling to and from Dumbarton, Balloch and Helensburgh.
“ScotRail is refusing to recognise the stress and inconvenience which has been caused by delays and cancellations on their network in this part of the country. After months of cancellations, delays, short formed and overcrowded trains, passengers should be entitled to the same compensation as those in other parts of the country.
“The dates that ScotRail are allowing passengers to use their compensation appear to have been overtaken by events.
“I can see the benefit of offering passengers discounted travel on Sunday 31st March as it’s Mother’s Day but is also the date on which an Old Firm fixture has been set.
“It doesn’t seem sensible to offer passengers compensation on a day when our rail network will already be under immense pressure with extra passenger numbers.
“I would urge ScotRail to extend their scheme to passengers in my constituency, and offer an additional date for them to use this discounted travel scheme.”
On January 14, when complaints about local services were at their zenith, Mr Hynes issued this note to passengers, but left local people out.
He wrote: “We are very sorry to ScotRail customers for our unacceptable service in parts of the country recently.
“While our teams work hard every day to deliver the service you demand, the reality is that we’ve fallen below the standard you expect and deserve.
“While it doesn’t excuse what has happened, here are the challenges we have faced:
“Daily services have had to be cancelled to allow our drivers and conductors to be trained on new trains and new routes before they can operate services safely
“The late delivery of trains by suppliers, including Hitachi and Wabtec, means there has been very limited time available for driver and conductor training
“An overtime and rest day working ban, now resolved, by the RMT trade union made the training problems worse.
“We are working flat out to train conductors and drivers on Scotland’s railway so that we can return services to normal. Since 9 December we have trained 70 drivers and conductors, so we have made progress, but we know we need to do more. We are training more than 20 drivers and conductors every day throughout January and February to return your service to levels you deserve.
“We have seen the level of cancellations reduce steadily over the last few weeks. We will continue to cut cancellations to improve your service. We expect week on week improvement through January and February to get your service back to normal levels.”
Now, well into March, there are still significant delays and cancellations to rail services.
You can check your service before travelling, by downloading the ScotRail app, checking @ScotRail on Twitter, or visiting journeycheck.com/ScotRail. Where services are cancelled, if another service is due within a short time our advice is to travel on that service. Where there are longer gaps, we will provide standby buses.
If you are delayed by more than 30 minutes, you are already entitled to compensation through our Delay Repay Guarantee. We are also offering those season ticket holders most affected by cancellations, caused by train crew shortages, extra compensation. This is a goodwill gesture to say sorry to our most loyal customers, and to thank them for their patience.
“Season ticket holders, accompanied by one extra person, on routes most affected by train crew shortages are being offered travel anywhere on ScotRail services for six specified weekends in March, April and May 2019*. The offer excludes weekends when there are big events happening across Scotland’s seven cities.
The offer weekends are:
Saturday 23 and Sunday 24 March 2019
Saturday 30 and Sunday 31 March 2019
Saturday 6 and Sunday 7 April 2019
Saturday 13 and Sunday 14 April 2019
Saturday 27 and Sunday 28 April 2019
Saturday 11 and Sunday 12 May 2019
Mr Hynes’s letter concluded: “We know you deserve better. The entire ScotRail Alliance – a partnership between ScotRail and Network Rail Scotland – is focused on delivering that and we will give you a better service.”