MSP vows to keep up pressure for much-needed improvements on Far North Line

8th June 2016

Highlands and Islands Labour MSP, Rhoda Grant, is to keep up the pressure on the Scottish Government to bring much-needed improvements to the Far North Line.

As Vice-President of Friends of the Far North Line, she will be attending its AGM next Friday (June 17th) at Tain railway station at its Platform 1864 newly-opened restaurant. The event is open to the public.

Others attending are set to include Phil Verster of Abellio ScotRail, Ian Prosser, Chief Inspector of Her Majesty's Railway Inspectorate - now part of the Office of Rail and Road (ORR) - and Frank Roach of Highlands and Islands Transport Partnership.

"The statistics continue to show the woeful lack of service to rail passengers in Sutherland, Caithness and Ross-shire," said Mrs Grant, who is spearheading the campaign for improvements to the Far North Line.

"The Scottish Government really should take on board the needs and aspirations of our rural Highland and Islands communities. Enhancements should not be overlooked merely because the populations served are small and dispersed.

“One of the key priorities has to be to reduce the rail journey time from Wick to Inverness, which has increased to 4 hours 30 minutes.

“No wonder recent figures from the ORR record a year on year fall in passenger numbers using the line since 2012/2013. Passengers are choosing bus or car to travel the route due to the unreliable service."

Earlier this year the then Transport Minister, Derek Mackay, answered a parliamentary question from Mrs Grant when she queried how many weekday train services achieved 100% punctuality on the line between 15th December 2014 and 12th December 2015.

He answered that services were on time, i.e. within the 4 minutes 59 seconds of the booked time, on 49 days out of 309. The reply means services were late 84% of the time.

Mrs Grant also previously asked the former Transport Minister how many of the 309 weekday services on the line, between 15th December 2014 and 12th December 2015, achieved 100% reliability.

The answer was that 216 days had no full cancellations, part-cancellations, or incidents where a train failed to stop where it should have stopped. The figures highlight that nearly 30 per cent of the year was dogged by an unreliable service.

The single track does not have enough passing loops and it is known that passengers at Beauly and Conon Bridge are fed up being stranded when late trains omit to stop, in order to make up time. Some people at Conon Bridge have reverted to going to Dingwall because the trains will stop there even if they are late.

· Friends of the Far North Line (FoFNL) was established in 1994, has over 150 members, including several community councils, and supports the railway line from Inverness to Thurso and Wick.