Old trains will remain on Inverclyde’s routes until 2018
Inverclyde's two rail routes are the only ones in Scotland to have modern trains removed for driver training – and it will be next year before they are brought back.
Passengers are growing increasingly angry about conditions on the the substitute old trains on the Gourock and Wemyss Bay lines — which have no toilets or wi-fi and poor heating.
The Tele reported last month that the up-to-date rolling stock had been taken away so that instructors could teach new drivers.
But now it has emerged that they will be away until at least May 2018, and that nowhere else in the country has had their new trains removed.
ScotRail have admitted that each weekday almost a third of Gourock-Glasgow trains — 17 out of 55 — and nearly half of Wemyss Bay-Glasgow services — nine out of 19 — now use the old trains, known as Class 314s.
Built in 1979, they replaced newer Class 380 trains — constructed between 2009 and 2011 — which have been diverted to driver-training classes in the Edinburgh depots.
Asked if it was fair that passengers had to pay the same fare for travelling on the old trains, a ScotRail Alliance spokeswoman said: “We have done everything we can to limit the impact on customers, and no services have been cancelled as a result of a small number of Class 380s moving for driver training.
“We’ve spaced, where possible, the services operated by Class 314s. This means that customers can choose a slightly earlier or later train if they prefer to travel on a class 380.
“No other routes are impacted, as we have taken just four Class 380s to allow us to progress driver training for the arrival of a new electric fleet this autumn.
“If all goes to plan, these four class 380s will be returned to both routes by May 2018.”
She added: “We have a requirement under the franchise agreement to use the Class 380s on the Edinburgh-Glasgow via Falkirk High line when it is electrified (to complete in July 2017). The class 380 is the only 23 metre electric train we have which is capable of 100mph.
“We are using Class 380s for this training as they are similar to the new Class 385s which start coming into passenger use in September 2017, and we need to have drivers ready to operate these new trains.”
Passengers who use the local lines are furious over the situation.
One angry commuter told the Tele: “Why is it only Inverclyde that has had its good trains taken away? Customers from here are being treated like second class citizens and it’s disgraceful that people are being charged the same fares to travel on trains that are nearly 40 years old.
“There should at least be a reduction for having to put up with uncomfortable, dirty, noisy old carriages that have no toilets.”
But Inverclyde’s representative on Strathclyde Partnership for Transport (SPT), Councillor David Wilson, is relaxed about the situation and says only a relatively small number of old trains were being put on the local lines.
The Tory councillor said: “We were the first lines to get the new trains, so in a way this is a case of swings and roundabouts. There is still a good chance of getting a modern train.”
