Mail Online

Come back, British Rail, all is forgiven! Service worse than 50yrs ago

...And here’s the humble timetable to prove it

By Mark Howarth

IT WAS the era when railways were infamous for stale sandwiches and strikes.

But the trains of the 1970s, it seems, were still better than the ScotRail service of today.

The Scottish Mail on Sunday has compared the 1972 British Rail schedules for Scotland to the reduced timetable that is being offered to commuters from tomorrow.

And, shockingly, the modernday timetable is worse than it was 50 years ago.

On many key routes there are fewer services per day in 2022 than there were back in 1972.

In many cases, the trains back then started earlier in the morning and continued later into the evening.

One example is the service between Edinburgh to Scotland’s newest city, Dunfermline. From tomorrow, about half of the services are being axed.

Only 15 trains per weekday will now run there from the capital – the first at 6.48am and the last at 7.20pm.

But 50 years ago, there were 23 services, starting at 6am and finishing at 10.50pm.

Back then, the journey time was as little as 29 minutes – three minutes faster than today.

In recent years, Dundee has enjoyed far better rail connections with Edinburgh and Perth compared with 1972 – but that will change tomorrow.

The daily total of 60 services will be cut to 35, five fewer than under British Rail.

East Kilbride in Lanarkshire will see its connections to Glasgow reduced from 35 to 19 – when in 1972 it had 20 and the journey was only four minutes slower.

Meanwhile, the Highlands will also see key services vanish.

Mallaig in Inverness-shire will lose one of its three daily trains from Glasgow with passengers now afforded only a four-hour window in which to set out from the city – whereas half a century ago services ran from 6am to 4.38pm.

It’s a similar tale for travellers from Inverness to Wick in Caithness – who are having their choice of services halved to two, neither of them leaving after 2pm.

A glance at the 1972 timetable shows there used to be three trains with departure times spaced throughout the day.

Many of the complaints about the SNP’s new slimmed-down service focus on the axing of late-night trains out of Glasgow and Edinburgh to smaller towns and cities, ruining nights out.

Compared with 50 years ago, revellers will now have to leave the capital three-and-a-half hours earlier for Dunfermline and give up an hour-and-a-half if they are intent on catching the last service from Glasgow to Motherwell.

The final train between Edinburgh and Glasgow will now be at 10.15pm instead of at 11.45pm. In 1972, it was at 11pm.

British Rail ran the trains and tracks of Scotland, England and Wales from 1948 until it was broken up and privatised in 1997.

It closed many branch lines in the 1950s, but also invested in high-speed intercity links in the 1970s.

Travel Meltdown

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2022-05-22T07:00:00.0000000Z

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https://mailonline.pressreader.com/article/281749862967410

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