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Drop in rail users blamed on unreliable train service


By Donna MacAllister

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chieftain
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THE number of passengers using the ScotRail train service between Inverness and Wick has fallen in the past year.

The figures from the Office of Road and Rail (ORR) show there were 56,864 fewer bottoms on seats on the line where 1.6 million tickets were sold this year.

The number of passengers getting on at Inverness fell by 47,070.

And the stunning Kyle line also saw a decline with roughly one out of every 20 passengers abandoning the service, equating to a near five per cent drop.

The statistics closely follow ScotRail’s own figures which revealed nearly half of all trains that came into Inverness Railway Station in July were late.

Highland and Islands Labour MSP Rhoda Grant, who is vice-president of the Friends of the Far North Line campaign group, said clearly more passengers were choosing to catch the bus or jump in the car because they had little or no faith in the train service.

And she criticised ScotRail saying the new passenger figures showed a "woeful lack of service" to rail passengers.

ScotRail insisted improvements were made to make the services more reliabile, and would continue to do so.

Scotland’s rail network is facing mounting problems as performance targets are missed and overspending grows on upgrade work, the rail regulator ORR has warned.

The pressures are great in the north with single track being difficult to operate particularly with the number of trains running.

Richard Ardem, long-term member of the Friends of the Far North Line, said the latest report showing the decline in passenger numbers was far from impressive reading.

It shows that on the Far North Line, Muir of Ord numbers declined by 2000, from 66,480 to 64,480.

There was a bigger drop in Beauly by nearly 7000 passengers, a fall from 59,406 to 52,870.

Dingwall train user numbers dropped also by 1608 to 80,900.

Some of these falls were offset by Alness, which posted an increase of 2762, from 23,614 passengers in 2015-16 to 26,376 this year, along with Conon Bridge where passenger numbers rose by 218 to 15,494.

Mr Ardem said it was disappointing that overall numbers were down. He said: "We have seen this decline over the last few years because there has been problems with punctuality and various other problems.

"It’s slightly disappointing but we are hopeful that there will be some investment in the line in the next year or two that will enable more services to be run and the existing services to be run on time to mitigate delays.

"If we could get another passing place between Inverness and Muir of Ord that would make a great improvement to the operation."

MSP Rhoda Grant said: "The statistics continue to show the woeful lack of service to rail passengers in Sutherland, Caithness and Ross-shire.

"No wonder new figures record another fall in passenger numbers using the line.

"One of the key priorities has to be to reduce the rail journey time from Wick to Inverness, which has increased to 4 hours 30 minutes. It is only with a faster and more reliable service that we will see a move from road to rail."

A ScotRail spokesman said: "We are working hard every single day to improve the service we provide to customers on the Far North Line. We have made a number of improvements to the reliability of services on that line, and will continue to do the best we can. Work is progressing to improve boundary fencing to prevent livestock coming onto the track and delaying services. We have also increased the line speeds at a number of locations, with more to come next year. These measures will improve reliability and journey times."

Earlier this year ScotRail statistics revealed just 56 per cent of trains arrived in Inverness within 59 seconds of their due time between June 25 and July 22.

Eighty per cent of trains arrived within five minutes, but that still fell short of ScotRail’s own target which aims to see 90.8 per cent of trains arrive within the five minute goal.

And in May the Virgin Highland Chieftain failed to leave for London because there were insufficient staff on duty to run the service.

Passengers were bussed to Edinburgh to pick up connecting services.


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