PLANS BY SCOTRAIL to improve capacity on the Inverness to Aberdeen route through Moray have been welcomed by Moray’s MSP.
This week the ScotRail Alliance revealed their improvement plan in the wake of severe criticism over the recent poor service being offered since Dutch firm Abellio took over the franchise.
According to the published plan passengers in Moray can expect their local rail service capacity to increase by 75% – while services between Aberdeen, Inverness and the Central Belt will also see significant capacity increases of around 50%.
“Passengers in Moray who rely on the Aberdeen to Inverness line have been expressing growing frustration over local services in recent years and the promised improvements can’t happen soon enough,” Moray MSP Richard Lochhead said.
He added: “The pledge to increase capacity on the Aberdeen to Inverness line by 75% by 2019 and also to increase capacity between Aberdeen and Inverness and the central belt are desperately needed.
“More people want to use the train these days so it’s essential the infrastructure is there to meet the growing demand but passengers often tell me that on some services they are squeezed like sardines into a tin and sometimes North trains are delayed or even cancelled.
“I’m pleased that the pressure being applied by Scottish Ministers to ScotRail in response to customer concerns has led to the publication of the improvement plan because if these promises are delivered they will be transformational for passengers using local services in Moray.
“We need to see better punctuality, quality of trains and that extra capacity as quickly as possible. I hope we don’t have to wait until 2019 to see the pledges delivered but we can see significant improvements introduced incrementally before then.”
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