By Lucy Ashton
Dumbarton MSP Jackie Baillie has reacted with fury after ScotRail announced plans to cut operating hours of ticket offices.
The rail operator is consulting on proposals to dramatically slash opening hours at local stations, Alexandria, Balloch, Cardross, Dumbarton Central, Dalreoch and Helensburgh Central.
This move comes after several years of disruption on local routes including station skipping locally, leaving passengers stranded and vulnerable and crammed trains at peak times.
The proposals include dramatic changes to opening times at Alexandria which would operate between 9.15am and 2.45pm on a Saturday as opposed to the current times of 6.30am until 11.30pm, if changes go ahead as planned.
Passengers at Helensburgh Central would see the ticket office hours slashed from 5.55am until midnight to 7am until 7pm on a Saturday under proposals.
Dumbarton Central Station – more SNP cuts in service are destined to arrive here.
Dumbarton constituency MSP Jackie Baillie slammed the plans.
She said: “This is absolutely unacceptable. My constituents deserve better than a second-rate service which they have experienced for a number of years under the SNP’s watch.
“All of this is happening while fares have risen again this month and routes are being drastically cut back.
“ScotRail are representing this as ‘delivering a better level of service to customers’ which is a gross misrepresentation of the truth. These cuts will hit passengers, threaten jobs and compromise station safety which is vitally important to people in my constituency.
“We won’t get people back on trains by cutting rail services to the bone. That is blatantly clear for anyone to see.
“It is now a matter of months until ScotRail comes into public hands – and the SNP-Green government are laying the groundwork by nodding through one round of cuts after another.
“I am appalled at this proposal and I urge the Scottish Government to intervene and ensure these ridiculous plans don’t go ahead.”
Meanwhile, there are reports that he number of crimes reported at West Dunbartonshire train stations has leapt by almost 50 percent.
Across the area 92 offences were reported to British Transport Police (BTP) in the year up to November 2021, with criminal damage and fire-raising, violent or sexual offences and thefts all common.
While the number of passengers dropped significantly during the pandemic, the number of crimes increased from 62 in November 2019 to 92.
Balloch was the second worst hit station in the local authority area, behind Dalmuir, recording seven counts of violent and sexual offences, three of criminal damage/fire-raising, two for drugs, one for theft and one for other crime.
There was almost one crime a week within the Dumbarton constituency, with almost 50 offences committed at or close to train stations.
What it is that is behind this is the plan to require everyone to have an electronic travel pass which can be can be charged up with credit. Like an Oyster Card come ID card it will allow electronic tracking across the network.
ID card and surveillance is a big thing for Government. Being able to have a track on every aspect of an individual’s life is the objective and for some years now the U.K. government have been linking data bases one to the other across driving licences, passports, national insurance numbers, medical – NHS records bank accounts and much more.
Indeed, when anyone joins a medical practice here in Scotland, the GP practice has to run the individual’s details through the Home Office and immigration service data bases. Patient detail is also shared with Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs, the police and other bodies. This is reality and if anyone wants to cast their mind back a few years they will recall Nicola Sturgeon setting up a named person system whereby the NHS database was to be used to interlink every young persons details across multiple data bases.
And that is another example of why the young person’s travel Pass has to be applied for providing copies of passport, birth certificate and photographs. Sturgeon’s Government is every bit part of the surveillance state.
So yes think about that as the Scottish Government innocuously dispense with ticket offices, with ticket collectors now refusing to take cash payments, and with cameras capable of photo recognition on every train carriage and bus and station, with vehicle ANPR number plate reading and recording cameras over all of the road network.
Like the 1970’s tv series “ The Prisoner “ the ever watching eye has come to pass. But of course we have nothing to fear. Our governments are scrupulously honest, there are no elites in our society, wealth and opportunity are equally spread, the law operates to treat all our citizens fairly.
I mean, what have we got to fear. They’re only taking the ticket offices away whilst Nicola and Boris will deliver us from all evil.