THE ScotRail Alliance’s managing director has issued an apology following a series of disruptions on Scotland’s railway network in the past week.
Alex Hynes, head of the partnership between Network Rail Scotland and ScotRail, said that the level of disruption was “unacceptable” and that “performance has been well below the standard customers deserve and expect.”
Saturday evening saw an overhead line failure outside Glasgow Central station, which led to services on all routes out of the station being delayed or cancelled.
It left many people seeking alternative transport to get home at one of the busiest times of the weekend.
Rail misery continued for part of Sunday as engineers battled to fix the problem before the start of the new week.
The issue was resolved in time for Monday morning, but a failure in signalling equipment near Rutherglen caused more delays for frustrated travellers.
And on Tuesday, a mouse eating through a cable at Yoker caused more problems for people travelling in and out of Glasgow just before the evening peak.
Power to the signalling system there failed as a result of the damage.
An apology from Alex Hynes, Managing Director, ScotRail Alliance pic.twitter.com/mDGZkskbA5
— NetworkRail Scotland (@NetworkRailSCOT) May 10, 2018
Mr Hynes said: “Disruption on Scotland’s railway this week has prompted Network Rail Scotland – as infrastructure partner in the ScotRaiI Alliance – to apologise after overhead line damage outside Glasgow Central, signal failures at Yoker and Rutherglen, and failure of the electricity supply between Cambuslang and Rutherglen caused significant delays to customers.
“Network Rail Scotland knows this level of disruption is unacceptable and is sorry that train services were affected so badly on Scotland’s railway over last weekend and this week.
“We are acutely aware of the frustration and inconvenience felt by customers when things go wrong.
“We are working constantly to give you a more reliable railway infrastructure and train service, investing billions of pounds to improve services across Scotland.
“We are improving signalling, replacing old equipment and bringing in modern technology and new trains to provide a more reliable service to customers.”
Customers affected by the disruption who were delayed by 30 minutes or more are entitled to compensation under the Delay Repay Guarantee.
To claim, simply keep hold of your ticket and visit www.scotrail.co.uk/delay-repay
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