61,500 ScotRail trains were delayed or cancelled last year

Almost 10 per cent of services didn't run, due to a myriad of problems across the services in 2015.
61,500 scotrail trains were disrupted last year in Scotland Picture: Ian Georgeson61,500 scotrail trains were disrupted last year in Scotland Picture: Ian Georgeson
61,500 scotrail trains were disrupted last year in Scotland Picture: Ian Georgeson

Nine per cent of all trains were cancelled or delayed due to reasons such as “vegetation management failure” - which covers leaves on the track or overgrown trees interfering with power lines.

The 61,500 trains which were late, cancelled or partially cancelled made up 8.1 per cent of all services last year, out of 710,052 timetabled services.

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37 per cent of those disruptions were blamed on problems associated with ScotRail, such as staff shortages or train failures.

Industrial action and staff shortages accounted for 1,884 cancellations.

The most common reason for cancellations was severe weather, with over 2,000 services not running.

Meanwhile 9,600 trains were disrupted due to power cuts as well as point and signalling faults.

A late train is counted as one which has been delayed five minutes or more past its scheduled arrival time.

Theft or vandalism, such as metal and cable thieves, caused 82 service disruptions in Scotland.

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Speaking to a national newspaper, David Sidebottom, passenger director at the independent watchdog Transport Focus, said: “Delays are annoying and frustrating for passengers whenever they happen. It is essential that the industry works hard to be on hand to help passengers when services are disrupted.

“Now that passengers are paying more than ever before, it is absolutely critical that train companies and Network Rail delivers a more reliable day-to-day railway and are made aware of their rights to a refund or compensation.”

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A spokesman for Network Rail said Scotland was one of the best performing region’s on the rail network with more than 90 per cent of trains arriving on time.

“The Scotland route is running more services and carrying more passengers now than ever before and, in Glasgow’s suburban network, has some of the busiest lines in the UK outside London.

“We invest significant resources each year in our infrastructure to try to reduce faults and as much as possible using new remote monitoring technologies and our fleet of track measurement trains to better target our maintenance and refurbishment works.”