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Thousands Hit By Delays in 4 Hours of Rail Misery Points Failure Brings Central Station to a Halt for 90 Minutes

Posted on: Monday, 21 November 2005, 12:00 CST

By WENDY MILLER

RAIL commuters today voiced their anger after scores of services at Glasgow's Central Station were hit by a points failure.

Thousands of commuters faced chaos, with no trains moving in or out of the high-level station for almost two hours.

Dozens of trains ground to a halt last night, including services to Paisley, Edinburgh, Ayr, Adrossan, Kilmarnock, Glasgow's Cathcart Circle, East Kilbride and Barrhead.

Services on the west coast line, including trains to London and Manchester, were also disrupted.

In all, 75 services were cancelled, 35 were partcancelled and 80 delayed by up to 94 minutes.

One commuter from Irvine said: "It was complete chaos. Every train from Glasgow Central high level was cancelled.

"I've never seen anything like it.

"I work in Glasgow and it caused me huge problems. I was late for collecting my daughter, so I'm really angry."

Buses were laid on to take commuters to Paisley and Motherwell to catch alternative trains, leaving some travellers facing two-hour journeys.

Trains run by First ScotRail, GNER and Virgin were all affected.

Rail bosses worked flatout overnight to get services back to normal today after another night of sub-zero temperatures.

Emergency engineers were called in by rail operator Network Rail after a points failure at the entrance to Central high-level just after 6pm.

It took two hours to fix but services were not fully restored until 10.30pm.

Today it was business as usual at Central - one of Scotland's busiest train stations.

A First ScotRail spokeswoman said: "All services have now been restored.

"We're not expecting any delays but in weather conditions like this there is a risk of all services being subject to delay."

Last night's chaos came after several trains were disrupted early yesterday by another points failure.

But First ScotRail said last night's failure was not related to the earlier problem.

Rail bosses put emergency services in place, including an hourly train between Gourock and Paisley and buses to Paisley Gilmour Street and Motherwell.

Virgin trains to and from England were also disrupted, including one carrying 750 passengers.

A Virgin spokesman said: "We had one cancellation from Central, the 8.20pm to Manchester. It affected 100 passengers.

"Several other trains from England were forced to terminate at Motherwell and passengers transferred on local services to Central lowlevel."

Earlier yesterday Glasgow's Subway system was also disrupted with the outer circle out of action for two hours after circuit failure between Partick and Kelvinhall and the West Street and Shield Road line.

SPT put on extra trains on the inner circle.

wendy. miller@ eveningtimes. co. uk

Source: Evening Times; Glasgow (UK)

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