Off track

Published on 21/01/2013 00:00

How dare you mock Steve 
Montgomery, the managing director of First ScotRail, in bursting into print (Perspective, 19 January) with your leader headed “So much to celebrate at ScotRail” … and this in a year when your own writers have sarcastically referred to Scotland’s premier rail company as First PogoRail and Worst ScotRail.

Are you perchance trying to rock the boat as we head towards the renewal of the ScotRail franchise next year? I hope not.

We ought to celebrate that Scotland’s most successful rail boss pockets a £333,000 salary while his successful trains act as mobile sardine tins; that his most successful strategy is his constant refusal to tell Transport Scotland that the trains he operates for it inflict 
appalling travel conditions on long-distance passengers and that his fares have rocketed to stratospheric levels; that he presides over a fares system impenetrable in understanding to us simple mortals.

Mr Montgomery’s 19 per cent salary rise pushes the weekly pay packet of the Prime Minister to a new low in the poverty stakes. I just hope that Mr Montgomery’s rise is also reflected in pro rata pay rises for senior managers at First ScotRail.

GORDON CASELY

Crathes

Kincardineshire