Wrong track

Published on 13/02/2013 00:00

My heart sank when I read this week’s press release from Network Rail outlining how the railway industry views future needs for trains and carriages.

One would have thought that after more than 20 years of the current unfit-for-purpose trains serving long-distance destinations, lessons would have been learned, lines drawn in the sand, and every possible cliché invoked to ensure that never again will we long-distance rail passengers be subject to the strictures of the current generation of Thomas the Tank Engines on steroids – and that any new trains will be planned around such basics as room for legs, bags and bikes, and with enough ­toilets per carriage.

But no. I fear the worst from the Network Rail release stating that passengers’ needs over the next 30 years will be decided by “a market-led” approach.

Have we learned nothing at all from the discredited rail fleet now operated by First ScotRail?

Worse, First ScotRail, Transport Scotland and the Scottish Government remains deaf to the pleas from us discomfited ­passengers.

Gordon Casely

Kincardineshire