Hundreds of ScotRail Sunday services cancelled

ScotRail said services had been cancelled or revised because of the driver shortage

ScotRail has said it cancelled about 320 services on Sunday because of a continued shortage of train drivers.

The nationalised rail operator advised people to "consider making their own arrangements" for affected routes.

ScotRail put extra late-night trains on major routes on Friday and Saturday but said it was too complex a situation to repeat that on Sunday.

An ongoing pay dispute with drivers has put a stop to overtime shifts the railway currently relies on.

In a tweet, ScotRail said services had been cancelled or revised because of the driver shortage and advised passengers to use their app or website to check if their train was running.

"Replacement transport can't be guaranteed and customers are asked to consider making their own arrangements," they said.

The ScotRail website says 27 of its 41 routes are experiencing major disruption.

The temporary extension of the emergency timetable for Friday and Saturday was announced after the company was criticised for slashing services on its weekday routes and stopping services hours early.

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A statement issued by the company on Saturday said: "Unfortunately, it hasn't been possible to implement a temporary timetable for tomorrow. That means the normal Sunday timetable will be in operation and there will be cancellations as a result.

"The complexities of pulling together such widespread changes to timetables means it's not possible to do it in such a short space of time. We apologise to customers and advise them to check their journeys on our website and app before travelling."

The drivers' union Aslef is embroiled in a pay dispute with ScotRail.

ScotRail has been coming under increasing pressure to resolve the dispute, which has seen drivers across the network refuse overtime and rest day working.

As a result, about 700 services have been cancelled and ScotRail has implemented a temporary timetable.

This week, ScotRail put forward an offer of 4.2%, which Aslef will ask drivers to vote on after a consultation.

ScotRail said the new pay offer was final and could not be improved.

If accepted, it is hoped services will return to normal, although the operator warned this could take around 10 days.

Delays to driver training

ScotRail returned to public ownership on 1 April and is run by a company owned by the Scottish government.

The rail operator began cancelling trains earlier this month after many drivers chose not to work overtime on rest days during the pay dispute.

Due to delays in training new staff during the pandemic, it relied on drivers working extra hours in order to run normal services.

The original Summer 2022 timetable had about 2,150 weekday services. This was reduced to 1,456 in the temporary timetable.

ScotRail said this would bring more certainty to services but it also meant the last train on many routes would depart before 20:00.