Railway supporting essential travel

KEY workers making essential travel in the Highlands have been kept moving thanks to "unprecedented punctuality across the country", ScotRail has claimed.

The train company introduced a key worker timetable following lockdown, including early morning and late-night services, to keep doctors, nurses, care workers and others moving as they carry out their lifesaving work.

With a revised timetable in place, the figures for the most recent period of performance (April 1 until May 2) show that 97.6 per cent of trains met the rail industry standard public performance measure.

Enhanced train cleaning has also been introduced, with a focus on touch points such as hand rails and door buttons.

Further amendments will be made to the timetable in the coming weeks and months, in line with government advice, to provide key workers with more opportunities to practise social distancing on trains.

Managing director Alex Hynes said: “We know how important Scotland’s railway is and I am delighted at how hard our staff are working to keep the key workers moving across the country.

“With fewer services running, we have made multiple changes to the timetable to make sure we are meeting the needs of those key workers who absolutely need to travel.

“There are clearly challenges ahead but it is very encouraging that we have been able to implement such a robust timetable and get so many trains running on time.”

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