AN ABERDOUR entertainer has said her business has suffered since Abellio took over the ScotRail franchise. 

Without a car, Carrie Todd says she relies heavily on the trains and has had to turn down gigs because she knows she cannot rely on the rail operator to get her to work. 

“I rely on the train, I managed fine before Abellio took over but not now,” Carrie told the Press. 

“One day this summer, I was trying to get to Larbert to a care home, but all the trains were cancelled due to a signalling failure, I travelled to Inverkeithing but there was no-one there to assist me.

“This was on June 15 and I’m still fighting for compensation; the system is very poor, and I think they do it deliberately so people just give up.

“I can’t run my business and it’s so unprofessional when you don’t turn up. It’s got to the point now where I turn down business that is a certain distance away because I’m frightened I wouldn’t get there. 

“What I could not understand was the high-speed trains were running fine, just not the Fife Circle line. 

“It always seems to me that Fife takes a hit and you just think here we go again! 

“We pay the highest prices in the country and what does it get us because we can’t even get an early-morning or late service at the weekends.”

Carrie said the current situation was forcing people in her area to buy cars. 

This comes after the news that Scotrail’s performance fell to a three-year low in August. Official statistics show has seen the punctuality and reliability of its trains deteriorate since Dutch-owned operator Abellio took over in 2015.

“The trains are definitely worse since Abellio took over, I cannot remember having these problems with the franchise before,” Carrie continued. 

“I had more employment then and it think these transport issues are undermining the Scottish economy. 

“It’s not rocket science, all they have to do is continue running the same service as before.”

ScotRail say nine out of ten trains met the industry performance target for the latest period and that its rail industry standard public performance measure – trains that arrive within five minutes of their scheduled time, having stopped at all scheduled stations – for the four-week period to September 15 was 91.6 percent.

A ScotRail spokesperson said: “We know performance needs to better and we share the frustrations of our customers when things don’t go according to plan. The investment we are making in new and upgraded trains, and our recruitment drive to increase the number of people working on our frontline, will help us significantly in enhancing the day-to-day running of services.

“We are building the best railway Scotland has ever had and service performance is a huge part of this delivery. Everyone at ScotRail is working together to deliver these improvements.”