In April 2023, ScotRail transferred into public control and ownership
In 2022/2023, ScotRail cancelled 2.9% of planned journeys (source below) up from 2.8% in 2021/2022 but the same as the pre-pandemic figure in 2018/2019 .
According to a report by iNews (above) From Avanti to Northern, the UK’s worst rail firms cancel 200 trains a day but bosses still take bonuses, the cancellation rates were:
- Avanti in 2019 and 2023, 3.19% and 6%.
- Transpennine in 2019 and 2023, 8% and 7.19%
- Crosscountry in 2019 and 2023, 4.8% and 10.3%
- Northern in 2019 and 2023, 4.26% and 6.4%
Despite this bosses were paid bonuses of up to £2.5m!
So, Scotrail at 2.9% is cancelling between only a fifth and a half of the above and is not getting worse like these four.
ScotRail paid no bonuses in June 2023.
Sources:
https://inews.co.uk/news/worst-uk-rail-firms-cancel-200-trains-day-fares-soar-2815938
https://www.scotrail.co.uk/scotrail-and-scottish-rail-holdings-salary-publication
Talking-up Scotland 'Albatraz' 
Isn’t it wonderful seeing Scotrail run properly I took trains from Dundee to Glasgow and Glasgow to Edinburgh recently and they were fab
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But ScotRail fares are going up next year by almost double the increase in England and Wales.
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But even when Scotrail fares go up they will still be cheaper than England and Wales I agree it’s amazing but that’s what you get when you delete the profiteering bloodsucking shareholders from the table
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ScotRail has no peak fare structure, but do you expect a better service without having to pay for it?
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Private business is just another name for middlemen greed and those defending it do so because they benefit from that scam , anything that is an essential service always always performs better in public service until the right wing get into government with the policy of reducing funding to essential services so they can then claim they are failing , the same ploy Westminster use with funding to Scottish government.
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Train journeys in the North and Scotland take twice as long as in the south. Same distance. Funding was wasted on HS2.. HS2 made journeys longer in the North. Historical lack of funding.
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And you’ll notice that here in Scotland, Scotrail negotiated with the the rail unions in better faith than the various privately owned lines, with most of the disputes up here settled swiftly. Neither side got all they wanted, because that’s how negotiations work, but from a travellers perspective I was having a trouble free daily commute while my friends in England were still being disrupted by strike after strike.
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Ok. You can get some credit for cancelling “just” 2.9%. Meanwhile countries like Denmark and Switzerland consistently achieve less than 1%.
I don’t recall when mediocrity deserved complementing.
Worse, I expect the mediocre 2.9% is the high point of the Scottish Government efforts. At the other end we have the ongoing nationalized shipyard ferry debacle where nobody is owning up to destroying hundreds of millions of pounds of value.
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You keep doing our job for us noticing the marvellous services provided by Government run businesses in Scotland Scotrail of course as you have already mentioned but also CalMac who provide newer more efficient ferries to more islands and do it on time compared to anywhere else in the world , England of course as you would expect in a country obsessed with ripping people off has the worst ferry services to be found in Europe Isle of Wight in particular but remember also the Herald of free enterprise inappropriately named because one would not herald free enterprise that ended up killing 193 people when it sank .
The Marchioness in London was also a terrible disaster .
Scottish government can be very proud of their record with ferries around Scotland the prices are much cheaper than England too .
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There are many more figures hidden away in these stats, loaded with propaganda.Reliability at what cost? Are we comparing the same service levels? The same fare levels and passenger levels? The obsession with shareholder dividends and not for profit is emotive, but those Shareholders are often our funds that almost every working person has a share in that pay our pensions!
Most of the projects and disruptive upgrades are over now in Scotland, that have dogged rail operating companies for years. Electrification and Queen Street and Waverley Station. The Scottish administration like most Governments are poor at running anything, and happy to blame private companies in franchises/contracts that they politically make mpossible.
However, Modern Private companies are so woke they are just as bad as those run by government.
One day we will find out the true cost that the government take over of the railways has been, don’t be surprised if its another ferry scandal equivalent, let’s just wait and see. Meanwhile we’ll keep on sucking up the Koolaid.
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When in private hands, the normal approach for a contractor is to fillet the contract, to find every fudge and ambiguity, and to weaponise against the public authority. (See also London Underground contracts, when if infrastructure were to fail in winter, it’d need a court decision to establish the temperature!)
See also PFI/PPP contracts.
Meanwhile, the ScotRail weakness is with, ahem, infrastructure. The GB infrastructure company, Network Rail, has been asked by UK ministers to save money and cut out maintenance jobs. (See also the recent Great Western rail fracture incident. See also Carmont.)
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