Scotrail Fail

I'm off to Dunfermline Town this morning so duly checked the timetable last night.

According to Scotrail's website, the train to Dunfermline Town leaves Edinburgh Waverley at 08.47am.

On arrival at Waverley this morning I noticesd that the 08.47am does not exist and in fact it leaves 08.46am.

Now I know its only a one minute difference but its the principle.

An online timetable of a rail company should be 100% correct!

RMT in strike action threats over removal of train guards

Having worked and lived in the London area for 15 years I thought I had seen the end of rail companies removing the guards from trains and the subsequent strikes and misery these short sighted decisions brought.

Now, I do not want anyone thinking that I sympathise with Bob Crow the leader of the RMT, because I do not, that man has brought so much misery to the commuters of London over the years that I cannot say his name without spitting and getting extremely angry.

However, this is one issue where I fully agree with the unions, although I don't agree with their choice of striking to solve the problem, that will just wind up commuters and travellers and not gain public sympathy.

The trains in Scotland are some of the cleanest and safest I have travelled on in the last twenty years, when I first moved to London after moving from Torquay trains had guards, trains were clean and trains also had fire extinguishers.

The removal of guards led to trains becoming more dirty as people just left their rubbish all over, vanadalism became more frequent, then fire extinguishers were removed and the main reason cited was vandalism.

I was on a late night train home from London Charing Cross to Dartford a few years back when stupid thugs set fire to a chair on a train, and myself and one other passenger had to attempt to put the fire out by stamping on the seat because the extinguishers had been removed while evacuating passengers into other carriages, because there was no guard to assist.

So Scotrail staff are rightly concerned about First ScotRail's plans to run trains without guards on the new Airdrie-Bathgate route, which is used by services travelling between Glasgow and Edinburgh.

A Scotrail spokesman is quoted in The Edinburgh Evening News as saying: "No one is losing their job and current terms and conditions are guaranteed. But the scheduled reopening of the £300m link is now at risk by a union campaign which boils down to who opens and shuts doors on trains."

There is a similar quote on the front page of the Scotrail website: "RMT has voted to strike over who opens and closes train doors on a new rail line."

These quotes are not helpful in any way, as the guard does a lot more than opening and shutting the doors and if that is the attitude of First Scotrail then it shows how little their media team knows about the train operation.

Striking isn't helpful and especially on the day of a major six nations rugby match, that will not help the cause of the staff trying to get the public behind them, they should re-consider their action and get round the table once again and thrash this out, and First Scotrail, perhaps you should ask your customers what they want and stop penny pinching, thats what got your colleagues down south into so much hot water.

Richard Branson – sort your train company out, it’s a disgrace!

I travel a lot by train now, although I will be learning to drive again shortly, so increase your life insurance especially if you live in Edinburgh. I digress; the difference in standards between different train companies is massive, especially when it comes to customer service and cleanliness.

Although many Scots will disagree I think Scotrail is one of the best rail companies out there, although I can hear the people already screaming, why?

You have to understand, I lived for 14 years in Dartford, Kent where we had to endure Connex South East, their trains were constantly late, if not cancelled and were more often than not dirty and if there was one drop of rain, or snow all hell broke out and then we often had the wrong types of leaves on the line.

So in comparison Scotrail is just awesome. The trains are clean, on time, comfortable, have staff, catering facilities and on the whole are quite regular. I know in parts of Scotland there are battles to increase services because of sparse timetables, certainly when my Mum and Sister lived in Ardgay, it didn't have the most frequent service. On the whole though they are a good company.

Today I have travelled from Edinburgh to Bournemouth, and therefore used Virgin Trains and Cross Country Trains (which obviously used to be Virgin Trains as the branding and colour schemes, even down to the carpet are exactly the same). It was like spot the difference.

I also use the National Express East Coast mainline service quite a lot so the following comparison is based on the three companies first class service in the last few days.

National Express East Coast mainline
Date of travel - Monday 14th September 2009

General cleanliness was good, although the toilet was absolutely filthy so I actually walked to the next carriage (yes, it was that bad), the little white trays on the tables that hold the sugar bowls etc I don't think they had been cleaned in months.

The complimentary newspaper was The Scotsman and that was handed out, the complimentary drinks were being served throughout the journey, although the complimentary refreshments range was very limited - tea, coffee, water, orange juice and shortbread.

The staff are all regulars, I recognised most of them from previous trips, that to me is a good sign, staff tend to stay with a company that looks after them, all helpful and polite.

Virgin Trains
Date of travel - Thursday 17th September 2009

The general cleanliness was awful, despite the first class section only being three quarters of one carriage, the tables were dirty and hadn't been cleared properly or wiped down, there was food debris and rubbish all over the floor and cups and glasses had only been placed on odd tables here and there.

The complimentary newspaper was The Times, these had just been left in a pile at the back, so I only noticed them when I went to the toilet, nothing was handed out but this was probably because the second member of catering staff just stood in the buffet car propping up the counter. If you wanted a drink you had to go to the buffet car and fetch it yourself, although I had no problem with that.

Where Virgin excel is with the range of complimentary products available for first class passengers - tea, coffee (in smaller cups than paying guests), a limited range of alcoholic drinks, crisps, newspapers, chocolate brownie and sandwiches.

The staff in the buffet car were very polite, but never came near first class. The member of staff from the cleaning team was excellent but this was let down by the fact that the carriage had not been cleaned at Waverley.

Cross Country Trains
Date of travel - Thursday 17th September 2009

Although the first class section was very busy the general cleanliness was excellent. The member of staff was fantastic, very attentive and was with you as soon as the train left the station with newspapers and refreshments. The member of staff from the cleaning team was very chirpy but discreet.

Although the member of staff was round with the trolley quickly and frequently, I was never sure what the complimentary range was apart from tea and coffee.

My only complaint was that the air conditioning was on too cold and my nipples stayed hard from Wolverhampton to Bournemouth.

Final assessment

Top of the class was Cross Country Trains with 9 out of 10, second place went to National Express East Coast mainline with 7 out of 10 and bringing up the rear, was bottom of the class Richard Branson's Virgin Trains with just 2 out of 10.

Virgin Trains must try harder, look at sorting out the cleaning operation at the turnaround stations and generally improve their customer service and cleanliness. I challenge Richard Branson to join me on Wednesday 23rd September on the return run to see what we, the paying customers actually have to endure on his trains.

The Caledonian Sleeper

Well, despite having put my Mum on to the Caledonian sleeper at Euston a few times to go back home via Inverness I've never actually been a passenger myself.

Until last night that is, the cost versus a normal train ticket and hotel room in London was significantly cheaper and that included the fact I went first class (my snoring prevents me from sharing anyway).

However, if you book enough in advance and look at single tickets opposed to returns you can often go first class cheaper than standard! Illogical I know but who's ever claimed to have understood the phenomenon that is the British railway system.

The cabin http://mypict.me/oOM3 is compact but adequate. However, Scotrail do need to learn to clean. My 15 years in the hotel and catering industry taught me a lot but not just about hygiene.

Its all in the detail and that's where Scotrail failed big time. Nothing major but lots of little things that all add up of course;

One light bulb not working, the edges of the carpet not hoovered, the sink was dirty and the bin was filthy.

I loved the complimentary toiletry bag, nice touch and it had everything you needed, I'd have had the Scotrail logo on things though!

If you are on Twitter you may have read that I commented on the fact that we arrived in Euston at 6.30am, 45 minutes early and the attendant was nowhere to be seen so I never got the breakfast, so another little fail.

We stopped during the night to couple up with another sleeper train, it took 9 or 10 attempts to couple the two trains which completely woke me up but overall not the worst journey I've had.

Overall score 7 out of 10.

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