ScotRail to provide extra seats for Edinburgh festival-goers

RAIL operator ScotRail has agreed to provide thousands of extra seats on services to and from Edinburgh over the next two weekends following complaints of over-crowding from festival-goers.

The company had claimed it was offering its biggest ever festivals service this year to coincide with a major campaign to persuade Glaswegians to take in Fringe shows.

However extra late night services and additional carriages on scheduled services were not enough to prevent the company getting flak at the weekend, when most of the major festivals were up and running.

Now ScotRail has pledged to lay on 14,000 extra seats this weekend on services to and from Glasgow, Dundee, Helensburgh, Partick and Milngavie.

A ScotRail spokesman said: “Last weekend, there was huge demand for trains to and from the Edinburgh festivals.

“We’ve listened to our customers, and so we are providing even more seats for the next two weekends – on top of our biggest-ever Edinburgh festivals timetable.”

The Fringe is running a box office in Glasgow for the first time at Queen Street station as part of its campaign to persuade people to travel east for shows.

However ScotRail has been unable to extend its last service out of Edinburgh any longer than 00.30, the same cut-off point that has been in place for the last decade.