Don't blame drivers for driving - fix our trains instead

Looked at purely on that basis, you can have sympathy with the cash-strapped Scottish Government’s predicament, but the abandonment of the scheme is still a depressing moment which makes it feel as if our hopes of a sustainable, futuristic transport system are slipping away.

The vision for modern, low-carbon, interconnected transport for Scotland is decades old. By now, carbon emissions were meant to be plummeting downwards. We were meant to be cycling with joy in our hearts on well-maintained cycle lanes to our newly reopened local stations, hopping on onto affordable state-of-the-art electric trains, settling into plush seats, connecting to fast and reliable rail wifi, and celebrating how much more spare cash we had to spend on our healthier lifestyles now that we’d dumped our cars.

It hasn’t quite turned out that way. It still could of course – that’s the thing about visions – but the fact that fares are being raised again is definitely taking us down the wrong track.

Travellers at Edinburgh's elegant Waverley Station (Image: PA)

Many people find rail travel too expensive. Peak time return fares between Edinburgh and Glasgow were reduced from £28.90 to £14.90 when the pilot was launched. They’ll shoot up to £31.40 when it ends.

Doesn’t that make your heart sink? You could buy a good pair of trainers on Vinted for that – or put half a tank of petrol in your car.

Perhaps the pilot didn’t lower fares enough to attract the volume of new passengers that would be needed for it to fund itself. You only have to look at the success of free bus travel for under 22s to see how dramatic a difference cost can make to passenger numbers.

But it’s more than cost that’s at work here. Rail travel is no longer a part of many people’s personal culture. If people are to be tempted out of their cars, rail travel has to be sold to them, not just as affordable but easy and convenient; enjoyable; lovable even. We need a new romantic age of rail.

If you’re a jaded commuter that might sound daft, but we all know rail travel can be wonderful. There is drama and poetry and nostalgia in rail travel in a way that you never experience on the M8.

We love our Victorian infrastructure and not just the big set pieces like the Forth Bridge and the Glenfinnan Viaduct, but countless gorgeous, lovingly maintained stations and spooky tunnels. Emerging from a late train into the echoing halls of Waverley station in the evening is one of the joys of living in Edinburgh.

The Victorians who built it would probably be mighty impressed by Glasgow Queen Street’s swanky new look. The journey between Scotland’s two largest cities might seem prosaic but it’s a dramatic joy: plunging into dark tunnels outside Queen Street, whipping past the cityscape and out into the fields. The approach to Edinburgh is one of the best views of the city you can get.

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We need to sell the advantages of rail over road. You can read, you can work, you can sleep. The crackdown on drinking and antisocial behaviour of recent years has helped make certain late evening services less of an ordeal. There’s no parking to pay for and no need to forego post-work drinks. People who don’t like public transport sometimes say that cars give them freedom; the opposite is true. They are burdensome, restrictive and expensive; it’s trains that are liberating.

Ideally our trains will evolve over time into something more like French TGVs, which have the vibe of quiet lounge bars, with spacious comfy seats, tables and softer lighting; we might even one day get double decker trains, something that hasn’t been seen in the UK thus far because of our low tunnels and gauge sizes, but which would do a huge amount to ease overcrowding.

There’s so much to love about rail travel, and you can see how further modernisation could attract even stubborn drivers, but we’ll never get there without further investment, or while bad headlines about unreliable services dominate the public debate. That’s where the effort must be focused.

“Romantic” isn’t how it feels when you’re standing on a chilly station concourse staring at the word “cancelled” on the departure board, knowing you’ll miss your child’s bedtime. “Pleasant” is not the word for standing in a tightly packed train vestibule pining for fresh air.

Scotrail was plagued with bad publicity about overcrowding and cancellations under operator Abellio, whose contract was terminated three years early in 2022, but since then rail users have faced further reduced services, cancellations and delays for various reasons, including a shortage of drivers and industrial action by rail workers.

Edinburgh's Waverley Station (Image: free)

Customer satisfaction levels have improved since the pandemic, but a Freedom of Information request by the Scottish Lib Dems earlier this month revealed that an average of 10 services a day were cancelled across Scotland in 2023, including more than 3,400 morning rush hour trains. The Scottish Government justifiably pointed out many were due to the weather or to infrastructure works outwith Scotrail’s control, but the effect on commuters is the same.

Heading off industrial disputes before they start, adding carriages or extra services on routes that are prone to overcrowding, pushing down the cost of tickets and helping people experience for themselves the benefits of rail travel, will all be critical to getting that vision for transport back on track.

Raising train fares? That’s putting us on the road to nowhere.