A WEST FIFE rail commuter has blasted ScotRail and told them that if they were a bank, he would have closed his account.

Rosyth resident Jan Ward was left fuming last week after he was late for a business meeting after his original train was cancelled and the next train from Rosyth to South Gyle turned up late.

In a letter to ScotRail, he thanked them for their “absolutely deplorable service and lack of actual care towards the hard-working public” and accused them of raising his monthly fare from £139.80 to £142.50 while offering no tangible benefit.

In reference to last week’s episode, he said he planned on taking the 8.39 train which would have given him plenty of time to make his important meeting.

“I fully accept part of the fault is beyond your reasonable control – albeit by using my money to invest in a proper infrastructure would stop that happening – in that there was a signalling problem in the morning,” he wrote.

“There is, however, no excuse for what you did next. You took it upon yourself to cancel all stops between Inverkeithing and Waverley.

"Given I was at the mercy of your service to get me to your meeting, I then waited for the 9.09.

"Lo and behold, it was running 12 minutes behind schedule and I did not arrive at my meeting until nearly 9.50am.

“If you were a bank, I’d close my account. If you were a supermarket, I’d shop elsewhere. I have a vast choice of airlines to choose from when I go on holiday.

"I don’t have the luxury of choosing another train company and refuse to accept a sub-standard service when I pay you lot a lot of money for something which should not be so hard to deliver.”

Mr Ward, of Primrose Avenue, has written to ScotRail, operators Abellio as well as local MP Douglas Chapman and other government officials in his quest for answers.

The letter added: “The service which we, the hardworking public get from you, is slowly becoming non-existent.

"Trains are more often than not late, sometimes ‘delayed’ before being cancelled, and all of this since you took over the contract.

"I, a paying customer, demand a cast-iron guarantee that the practice of cancelling stops will not occur again while you have the contract.

"If you breach this guarantee, what level of compensation will you pay myself and the fellow passengers whom are inconvenienced by this practice?”

Mr Ward, who travels into Edinburgh every day to get to his credit risk job at Tesco Bank, said he was still waiting to hear back from ScotRail after sending the email.

“I just want to make them accountable for what they are doing as we pay a lot of money to use the service,” he told the Press. “It is a common thing. Again this morning, it was five minutes late getting to the stop.”

A ScotRail Alliance spokesperson said they apologise: “We are very sorry for the delay to Mr Ward’s journey and the obvious inconvenience that it caused. We have responded to his letter and offered him compensation in line with our delay repay scheme. 

“Any ScotRail customer who has been delayed by 30 minutes or more can claim compensation. They simply have to keep hold of their ticket and apply at scotrail.co.uk.”