LET me get this right.

Abellio ScotRail (ASR) operates trains it doesn’t own, over track it doesn’t own, between stations it doesn’t own.

ASR is then fined an eye-watering £3 million. But, says ASR, this isn’t a fine at all. It’s a “reinvestment fund”. Aye, right.

Then ASR, in halving the number of carriages on the prime Edinburgh-Glasgow route, employs the age-old standby of apologising “for any inconvenience caused”. Standing all the way between our principal cities is a mere inconvenience? Aye, right again.

In 1989, our real trains were taken away from us and we were landed with Sprinters, Supersprinters and Turbostars, toytown trains with names straight from The Beano. Our constant protests as passengers have been met down the years by endless promises from ScotRail, from Transport Scotland, from the Scottish Government.

By my arithmetic, we’ve had 29 years of promises, and we passengers remain cursed by a railway system in Scotland of which our successive ScotRail franchisees, Transport Scotland and the Scottish Government should be thoroughly ashamed.

At which an ASR spokesman ("Misery as ScotRail hit by record penalties", The Herald, February 19) blithely chirrups that “standards are driven ever higher, and customers get a better service”.

Aye right.

Gordon Casely,

Westerton Cottage,

Crathes,

Kincardineshire.