ScotRail will cut its services by around 30% from Monday because of cancellations linked to a drivers' pay dispute, the operator announced today.
It comes after around 100 more services a day were halted over the last week because of a “significant” number of drivers not working overtime after rejecting a 2.2% pay increase.
The reduction of around 694 weekday journeys is needed so ScotRail can continue to provide a reliable service, management said, with no indication when they will be reinstated.
In a statement, the company said that introducing a temporary timetable "will provide greater certainty and reliability for those travelling" and blamed the coronavirus pandemic for having fewer trained drivers.
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A spokesman said: "We've been relying on drivers working overtime or on their rest days to run a normal timetable, as the pandemic meant that training new drivers was significantly delayed. Without Covid and that impact on training, we would have trained around an extra 130 drivers today.
"Following an announcement by the drivers’ union ASLEF that it will ballot for industrial action over pay, a significant number of drivers have been declining to make themselves available for overtime or rest day working. This has resulted in the recent disruption and our need to introduce a temporary timetable going forward.
"We want to resolve this dispute with the trade unions and move forward together to provide the safest, greenest, and most reliable railway we can for Scotland. In the meantime, we’re asking customers to check your journey as your train times may have changed.
"We are currently working on temporary timetables for Saturdays, which will be broadly similar as Monday to Friday, and for Sundays as well. We’ll update customers in the coming days."
Full details of all affected journeys are available on the ScotRail website.
