Headlining in the Herald today, the above, and:
The publicly-funded owner of Scotland’s railways has had to pay out £220m in compensation over five years to train operators including ScotRail because of disruption to services, The Herald can reveal. The huge bill is £106m higher than what was allowed for in Network Rail’s delivery plan which outlines the activities, expenditure and proposals for the maintenance, renewal, and operation of the nation’s mainline railway infrastructure.
You’d be forgiven for thinking this has something to do with the Scottish government but in reality it’s all to do with failures by Network Rail, UK Government-controlled, to maintain the infrastructure – the rails, the signals etc.
Some missing facts:
From Train Operating Company key statistics April 2022 to March 2023, Office of Rail and Road in August 2023:
Network Rail was responsible for 410 942 minutes of delays due to infrastructure faults while ScotRail was only responsible for 241 688, in 2021-2022.
In 2022-2023, it was 483 533 and 275 963.
Network Rail was thus responsible for 63% of time delays in 2021-20222 and for 64% in 2022-2023.
Assuming some correlation between the length of delays and the payments made, it now looks like Scotrail spent only £0.7 million from its own funds, over two and a half years, and made an average payment per journey of a tiny 0.7p.
For the preceding discussion, see: https://talkingupscotlandtwo.com/2024/12/23/little-shock-as-alex-cole-hamilton-exposes-2p-average-rail-delay-payment-and-0-06p-average-accommodation-cost-per-journey/
Talking-up Scotland 'Albatraz' 
Aye, glad to see Disable-bodied seaman Martin Williams got his land legs back, but really, ‘Alarming’ ? https://archive.ph/dbfeL
You need to scroll a long way down to find out who said it was alarming – ” Maryam Eslamdoust of the transport staff union TSSA said: “It is alarming but not surprising that Network Rail has had to pay £220 million of taxpayers’ money in compensation to rail companies for delays “
So alarming but not surprising then, a bit like scottish journalism these days…
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This deliberate misreporting by the MSM , attempting to blacken the name of anyone /anything remotely connected to the SNP Scottish Government , is now so commonplace that , I hope , most people see it for what it is – desperation on the part of a failing union .
I read the headlines of the daily newspapers (?) each day and it is a rare day when there is NO story traducing the Scottish Government . The Scottish editions of the English papers are particularly virulent in their attitude to Scotland , often excoriating the SNP for issues which in England under a Westminster Government are demonstrably many times worse .
The MSM has lost what little credibility it used to have – yet politicians still kowtow to the owners of these rags ! Go figure !
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While there is, indeed, hostility towards the SNP-led Government The Herald has been hostile to the concept of a Scottish Government from its inception in 1997, even when Labour were the heid bummers. However, the Herald is also hostile, like almost all of the mainstream media to concepts of public ownership, the common good, a more equitable society.
Since the post war nationalisation of much of the industry and services in the UK, the media has always painted a picture of ‘feather-bedded, public owned industries run by the trade union bully boys’. By plugging this line relentlessly for 40 years there was sufficient public support for Thatcher to begin denationalising so that ‘private enterprise’ could run things “better” – i.e. maximise profits for share-holders while ‘driving down costs’ (Paying lower wages and producing inferior products and services.
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The original BBC Scotland News article dated 24th January 2025 was subsequently updated on the 25th January 2025, when it was pointed out in the comments their article did not mention Network Rail were carrying out this upgrade.
The article features an image of the ScotRail logo and includes a quote from a ScotRail spokesperson apologising to rail passengers facing 16 weeks of disruption.
Their update now has the ScotRail spokesperson referring to Network Rail.
This is the only time Network Rail is mentioned in the article.
Whenever the BBC updates an article they should also give a reason for the change(s).
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cn01qk2jdr7o
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Such as what ? ” Our bias by omission was spotted by too many people ” ?
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The link that is missing as opposed to the missing link is always the UK government’s involvement in all matters highlighted by the mainstream media as matters that they regularly promote as being a failure, a serious mistake , a case of incompetence or just bad management in Scotland.
Fiascos and controversy are often overused, as descriptions, by the media and opposition parties in Scotland to exaggerate and misrepresent situations within Scotland, their only purpose as descriptions is to hopefully try to tarnish the SNP’s reputation and competence as a government.
The only way the media here can try and stop support for independence increasing is to present the SNP as those who are incapable of running a country and that is why they constantly target them, as the Scottish government , all of the time.
That’s why papers like The Herald pump out a succession of negative stories they link to the SNP , as they are a newspaper , who like many other media within the UK, are not supportive of Scottish independence and so they, as a media, form part of the opposition who collaborate with those political parties who also oppose Scottish independence.
Once more voters in Scotland catch on to that fact then it will become more obvious of the true purpose behind most of these never ending SNP are bad headlines and articles.
Hard to believe many voters in Scotland have as yet failed to join up the dots and so make the connection between the media and the opposition parties , but that seems to still be the position with some within Scotland , as is of course those within Scotland who choose to collaborate with the anti independence media and opposition parties.
It seems many think Scotland has indeed been better together with the rest of the UK since 2014 or at least that’s how they are all acting ( acting – portraying fictional characters in a fictionalised version of reality).
Sounds about right.
Liz S
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Ah well, never mind the accuracy is the Heralds standard these days.
I wonder what catchy title Martin Williams will coin for his series on Scotland’s trains? Chaotic Choo Choo’s perhaps?
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