welshbairn Posted December 23, 2018 Share Posted December 23, 2018 Someone on here said that all Scotrail do is staff the trains and stations and sell tickets. If so it seems unfair to blame them for everything. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Scary Bear Posted December 23, 2018 Share Posted December 23, 2018 3 minutes ago, welshbairn said: Someone on here said that all Scotrail do is staff the trains and stations and sell tickets. If so it seems unfair to blame them for everything. Scotrail made a grand announcement a couple of weeks ago that they were changing the timetables to improve performance. Maybe it’ll all settle down, but at the moment they have gotten worse since then. So, they must do timetables too. According to Transport Scotland, Scotrail are also responsible for decisions on how many coaches a train will have. On the staffing thing, they are now training loads of additional staff, so initially that’ll probably lead to poor service, but in time, once they learn the ropes, and assuming retention of staff isn’t an issue, things may get better. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Scary Bear Posted December 23, 2018 Share Posted December 23, 2018 12 hours ago, MixuFixit said: Insinuating the Scottish Government would f**k it up because it is the Scottish Government and not A.N. Other government is classic tory cringe tbh. See that Tory thing? It’s a worry. Some part of me enjoyed the Tories giving Wee Nic a verbal kicking over Scotrail, such is my current disenchantment with all things Scotrail. It’s quite depressing that the Tories are the best opposition in the Scottish Parliament. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Crùbag Posted December 23, 2018 Share Posted December 23, 2018 40 minutes ago, Scary Bear said: As far as i’m concerned the Scottish Government are responsible for the Scotrail contract. When I write to the various SNP Transport Ministers to let them know of various shite aspects of Scotrail, my letter gets punted on to Transport Scotland. Transport Scotland send me a ‘whit can ye dae? Jam tomorrow though’ letter to try and placate me. It doesn’t placate me. Just telling me that it’s fucked and the only way they can fix it is by being an independent country doesn’t help, as that’s a thing that may never happen. I got that it’s an intolerable situation during the austerity years but some of the Scotrail things are purely down to shite management by Scotrail. The Scottish Government awarded the contract to Abellio and it’s up to them to make sure Abellio perform. You are talking bollocks. As with austerity and the ScotGov's powers to 'mitigate' disastrous legislation from London, we have little power of the rail network - all we can do is choose between one bunch of pirates or another. ScotRail has been awful for the past 15 years or more, as I know well. ScotGov has no control over the infrastructure. If independence doesn't offer us a way out, then what other avenues are there? Tories will do eff-all and Labour don't know their arse from elbow and didn't re-nationalise or do any better when in power in London. Rail services in other parts of the UK are even worse than Scotrail. London will give us nothing unless forced to. Independence will give us the power to unify a fragmented network and bring it under public control once again. Just like other normal independent nations. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sergeant Wilson Posted December 23, 2018 Share Posted December 23, 2018 They can chuck all the money and technology they like at it. But rail services all over the UK is run by lazy, incompetent managers at various levels. Even if they were better, legislation means any change is painfully slow, due to the poor decisions made in the 70s. Nationalised rail was a basket case that privatisation has made worse. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Scary Bear Posted December 23, 2018 Share Posted December 23, 2018 13 minutes ago, Crùbag said: You are talking bollocks. As with austerity and the ScotGov's powers to 'mitigate' disastrous legislation from London, we have little power of the rail network - all we can do is choose between one bunch of pirates or another. ScotRail has been awful for the past 15 years or more, as I know well. ScotGov has no control over the infrastructure. If independence doesn't offer us a way out, then what other avenues are there? Tories will do eff-all and Labour don't know their arse from elbow and didn't re-nationalise or do any better when in power in London. Rail services in other parts of the UK are even worse than Scotrail. London will give us nothing unless forced to. Independence will give us the power to unify a fragmented network and bring it under public control once again. Just like other normal independent nations. See that opening line, do you find that works when you’re conversing with people? If you can’t see the obvious deterioration in service since Abellio took over the franchise then I don’t trust your judgement. We don’t have independence. You’d be as well saying you believe in fairies and everything will be fine when the fairies work their magic. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Salvo Montalbano Posted December 23, 2018 Share Posted December 23, 2018 You are talking bollocks. As with austerity and the ScotGov's powers to 'mitigate' disastrous legislation from London, we have little power of the rail network - all we can do is choose between one bunch of pirates or another. ScotRail has been awful for the past 15 years or more, as I know well. ScotGov has no control over the infrastructure. If independence doesn't offer us a way out, then what other avenues are there? Tories will do eff-all and Labour don't know their arse from elbow and didn't re-nationalise or do any better when in power in London. Rail services in other parts of the UK are even worse than Scotrail. London will give us nothing unless forced to. Independence will give us the power to unify a fragmented network and bring it under public control once again. Just like other normal independent nations.Yes, but re-nationalisation wasn't Labour policy then - it is now, so might well happen. To be fair to the SNP though, they've always argued that the government should be allowed to run the railways as a matter of course and not just as an operator of last resort. The privatisation of the railways was probably the worst of the lot for bizarre regulations and for not doing what privatisation is meant to do in terms of investment and competition. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HTG Posted December 23, 2018 Share Posted December 23, 2018 Scotrail are absolutely fucking useless. They were brutal under First and have nosedived from an incredibly low bar. That there are service providers who are worse elsewhere in the UK just emphasises how fucked the railways are in this country. Abellio senior management should be out of a job by now. If Scot Gov do nothing else, sacking the people responsible for this utter shambles would at least be a start. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
drs Posted December 23, 2018 Share Posted December 23, 2018 (edited) ...but then the Scottish Government would have to admit that it was THEM and not Westminster that had made a complete arse of it by giving Abellio the contract. The current issues are Scotrail issues, not Network Rail issues - the new timetable has been a disaster as they don't have trained staff for the new trains and yet this is a timetable that was supposed to come in last May but which was put back owing to delays in electrification and upgrades to the 40 year old HST sets that are running some of the intercity routes across Scotland now. Network Rail essentially gave them another six months to prepare for the timetable and yet somehow Scotrail still managed to make a complete c**t of it. The transport secretary really should be under intense scrutiny for the failures since December 9th (and indeed the cancellations beforehand). Edited December 23, 2018 by drs 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
welshbairn Posted December 23, 2018 Share Posted December 23, 2018 38 minutes ago, drs said: ...but then the Scottish Government would have to admit that it was THEM and not Westminster that had made a complete arse of it by giving Abellio the contract. The current issues are Scotrail issues, not Network Rail issues - the new timetable has been a disaster as they don't have trained staff for the new trains and yet this is a timetable that was supposed to come in last May but which was put back owing to delays in electrification and upgrades to the 40 year old HST sets that are running some of the intercity routes across Scotland now. Network Rail essentially gave them another six months to prepare for the timetable and yet somehow Scotrail still managed to make a complete c**t of it. The transport secretary really should be under intense scrutiny for the failures since December 9th (and indeed the cancellations beforehand). I thought it was the Scottish Government who were in charge of buying rolling stock and Scotrail are short of capacity on certain routes through no fault of their own. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Crùbag Posted December 23, 2018 Share Posted December 23, 2018 2 hours ago, drs said: ...but then the Scottish Government would have to admit that it was THEM and not Westminster that had made a complete arse of it by giving Abellio the contract. The current issues are Scotrail issues, not Network Rail issues - the new timetable has been a disaster as they don't have trained staff for the new trains and yet this is a timetable that was supposed to come in last May but which was put back owing to delays in electrification and upgrades to the 40 year old HST sets that are running some of the intercity routes across Scotland now. Network Rail essentially gave them another six months to prepare for the timetable and yet somehow Scotrail still managed to make a complete c**t of it. The transport secretary really should be under intense scrutiny for the failures since December 9th (and indeed the cancellations beforehand). Some are. But the points failure last week that paralysed trains in the Dundee/ Perth area was down to NR. Abellio have been woeful but what were the options? Who would you have chosen? Btw... 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Crùbag Posted December 23, 2018 Share Posted December 23, 2018 9 hours ago, Scary Bear said: See that opening line, do you find that works when you’re conversing with people? If you can’t see the obvious deterioration in service since Abellio took over the franchise then I don’t trust your judgement. We don’t have independence. You’d be as well saying you believe in fairies and everything will be fine when the fairies work their magic. Opening line a tad radge, granted. Maybe I got into the spirit of your expletive ridden post. Abellio are awful and yes, probably worse than First. I was a regular commuter 16 years ago and it was woeful. Abellio are apparently, and incredibly, outperforming the other operators in the UK. As I asked of someone else, who would you have chosen over Abellio and on what grounds? We were/ are forced to choose between different cabals of pirates. As to fairies...?! I can only look to the rest of the UK and think 'why is it worse there?' Independence would put the issue in our own hands and nobody elses. Labour may, or may not renationalise, if they get into power. Then again, you might as well wait for the fairies to work their magic. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ginaro Posted December 23, 2018 Share Posted December 23, 2018 23 minutes ago, Crùbag said: Btw... Berwick to London in 7 days is £57 with free wi-fi, roughly the same journey time. Seats look good, though you'd have complaints about the table size. Unfortunately you're not going to get wider carriages or double-decker trains over here unless the nationalised bit of our network gets lots and lots of money to spend. No doubt one of the main difference is the Danish government put in much more subsidy per passengers than us (maybe not up to date but still gives a comparison https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rail_subsidies#Europe) GWR have new trains (class 800) but these were bought and spec'd by the Department for Transport - there's complaints about the seats, so the government getting involved doesn't always improve things... 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Michael W Posted December 23, 2018 Share Posted December 23, 2018 The GWR 800s are shite. My commute on them is 30mins and that is enough - they are dreadfully uncomfortable and not very reliable either.Fun and games when the same shitey seats are fitted to the LNER units doing Edinburgh/Aberdeen to London - I'll take the plane, thanks. The interior spec was indeed drawn up by the DfT, and is the cheapest, nastiest fit they could find. The 700s were similarly specced by the DfT and are similarly crap inside. Most infrastructure issues are the fault of Network Rail (including the electrification shambles), which is de facto nationalised. Issues with capacity are often down to the DfT (govt department) who spec the franchises. Issues with staff are the fault of the train operator. Nationalising the railways will achieve f**k all unless the government pulls its fingers out its arse and reigns in the DfT and Network Rail. It won't make the trains any cheaper either unless the government increases the subsidy paid (unlikely to be particularly popular). Saying that, the current model is not working, mostly due to government incompetence and a lack of oversight. The government is of course happy with the current state of affairs, as the train operators take all the flack whilst DfT/Network Rail get a free pass. I haven't followed closely what the issue is with Scotrail, but sounds like lack of staff is a significant contribution to it. Doubtlessly Transport Scotland has been let off lightly by Scot Gov also for their part. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ayrshire_nomad Posted January 3, 2019 Share Posted January 3, 2019 Just applied for a job with scotrail, any current employees on here would care to share their opinion on their employer? 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
welshbairn Posted January 3, 2019 Share Posted January 3, 2019 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Boghead ranter Posted January 5, 2019 Share Posted January 5, 2019 Doubly let down by these wankers today, due to 'staff shortages'. Had to be in Edinburgh for a 14:30 event, no problem, 13:16 train from Larbert gets into Waverley (I go all the way, chaps) at 14:00, and a ten minute walk means I had plenty time. Except that the 13:16 was cancelled, so I had to drive to Falkirk High and get a train from there. Coming home, get to Waverley at 19:30, to find that the next train thru High, 20:00, is also cancelled due to staff shortages. Left with the choice of hanging around until 20:30 (with no guarantee that train would run), or get a train to Grahamston, then a 15 minute walk up to High for my car (and pay the £2.50 it wouldn't have cost me to park at Larbert). Cvnts. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
drs Posted January 5, 2019 Share Posted January 5, 2019 Should have went to Camelon instead as it would have had the G to E via Cumbernauld trains as well, and its free parking. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ajwffc Posted January 5, 2019 Share Posted January 5, 2019 7 minutes ago, drs said: Should have went to Camelon instead as it would have had the G to E via Cumbernauld trains as well, and its free parking. that route has the most cancellations at the moment. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
eez-eh Posted January 6, 2019 Share Posted January 6, 2019 It’s almost as if they’ve planned to bring in all these new trains, but only realised right at the last minute as they’re being implemented “oh f**k, we need to retrain all these c***s to drive these things”. I struggle to think of any other industry so routinely affected from a lack of basic planning. Complete and utter charlatans. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.