From
the Press and JournalCommuters in Moray have hit out at a timetable shake-up poised to reduce the amount of morning trains.
A review of connections from Elgin to Inverness is due to remove one of the early shuttle services between the stations from next month.
The changes will mean the removal of the 7.28am weekday services from the Moray town through Forres and Nairn, which has had passenger numbers drop by about 80% during lockdown.
However, confusion has been created due to the early morning 7.06am service being missing from current online timetables.
ScotRail says the earlier service is due to remain and will return the website once the new timetable has been confirmed.
Southbound services are not due to be affected with passengers still able to arrive in Aberdeen shortly after 7am following the timetable change, which takes effect from December 13.
Meanwhile, regular commuters have hit out at the reduction in services ? warning it could cause extra crowding on the remaining services
Personal comment ... if you thin out a train service, there are two scenarios:
a) You are removing capacity from the service (if it was frequent enough)
b) You are removing journey opportunities (as you leave long gaps or take out connections)
Based on the final comment, the problem even way up in Scotland is the first of these issues, and not the much more serious issues of thinning out a service to the extent that it doesn't provide a service when people need it any more. Remember this is a
personal thought - there is an element of sense in some thinning out for a time, especially if there is adequate capacity remaining, and by thinning out at more frequent times you can protect resource to maintain other services which are not broad in the same way.
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