A North Lanarkshire councillor has hit out after services at a train station in his ward were “utterly crippled”.
Conservative councillor Nathan Wilson expressed his frustration at the large number of services that have been cut at Shieldmuir train station by ScotRail.
The representative for the Motherwell South East and Ravenscraig ward criticised the timetable reduction as the number of train services to and from Glasgow Central were significantly reduced when ScotRail introduced a temporary timetable in response to a staff pay dispute and delays in training new drivers.
It’s resulted in almost half of services between the station and Glasgow Central being removed from the train route for the time being.
The alterations mean that for Monday to Saturday travel from Shieldmuir to Glasgow Central, services have been reduced from twice hourly to just one per hour between 8am to 8pm. And in the other direction, the journey from Glasgow Central to Shieldmuir midweek and on Saturdays, there is now only one train per hour between 8am to 5pm.
The last service in the evening between Monday and Friday for returning to Shieldmuir from Glasgow Central is now 22.23 with the three latest trains, scheduled for after 11pm cancelled.
The last train back to Shieldmuir on a Saturday is marginally earlier at 22.22 with the previous last train to leave Central at 23.18 now taken off the route.
Councillor Wilson has called for the previous level of service provision to be reinstated as soon as possible.
He said: “The SNP Government only moved ScotRail into public ownership at the beginning of April and in this short period, devastating cuts have been inflicted on the train network across Scotland and North Lanarkshire.
“Train services between Shieldmuir and Glasgow Central have been utterly crippled by the recent timetable reduction and the opportunities for local people who live in nearby areas such as Craigneuk and Muirhouse to travel into the city centre from the station is now massively reduced.
“The cuts are a disaster for Shieldmuir and the weakening of the train timetable in the local area is a very significant concern.
“It is vital that regular services do not remain suspended for a lengthy period and for the depressing new reality of local train service provision to be quickly reversed”.
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