ScotRail apologises to customers over Borders Railway services

ScotRail has apologised to customers over delays, cancellations and overcrowding on the Borders Railway.

Senior managers faced questions from the public in Galashiels at a meeting organised by MP John Lamont.

Operations Director David Simpson admitted the last few months had been "very difficult" for passengers on the Edinburgh to Tweedbank line.

He said they were working flat out to sort it and expected to see sustained improvement through the summer.

Dozens of rail users attended the meeting arranged to allow them to express what Mr Lamont described as "growing frustration" at issues on the route.

Mr Simpson said he accepted performance had not been good enough.

"The last few months have been very difficult for customers, I appreciate that and I apologise for it," he said.

"We are working extremely hard to fix that but the problem has a lot of causes.

"It is to do with late delivery of trains which has meant extra training for train crew and occasionally Borders has had to be affected by that."

'We don't like letting people down'

However, he said the good news was that the training programme would be completed before its next timetable change this month which should improve reliability and performance.

He said the company would closely monitor services.

"We don't like letting people down," he said.

"Borders has been a massive success since it opened nearly four years ago now - we want to continue that.

"The last few months have been really frustrating for us all - we don't want to inconvenience customers.

"We know it has been hard and we are working flat out to fix that."

Mr Lamont said he was worried the problems could affect efforts to extend the route.

"People have campaigned for many, many years to get the Borders Railway returned to Gala and Tweedbank and, indeed, I am at the forefront of the campaign to get it extended on to Hawick, Newcastleton and on to Carlisle," he said.

"My great fear is it undermines the case for that extension if we have issues around reliability on the current service."

He said in order to encourage people to take the train instead of other methods of transport it had to be reliable.

"It is absolutely critical we get this right," he added.