Anger as Highland Chieftain train fails to turn up at Inverness Railway Station - "not enough staff" to run it

NEARLY 100 people were left in disarray when the Highland Chieftain train from Inverness to London was cancelled at the last minute.

The scrapped service, which is the only daily daytime train link to London from the city, sparked fury from passengers despite Virgin Trains East Coast laying on buses to Edinburgh for connecting journeys.

A company spokeswoman revealed that there was not enough staff to operate the 7.55am train on Tuesday – provoking fierce criticism from business leaders and passengers.

But she declined to comment on claims the driver had failed to be given a long enough break before the shift.

Witnesses described the utter chaos and told how desperate passengers rushed to the first coach that arrived.

Inverness couple Cathy (50) and Jim Macleod (57) were due to catch the Chieftain to Edinburgh en route to Harrogate for her cousin’s wedding.

“It was something to do with staffing issues and the driver not having a long enough break before the next shift,” she said. “The lack of information and staff not helping people was terrible.

“We were told to wait at the side of the train station for the bus and when the bus did arrive there wasn’t a member of staff to help people and then when she did arrive she wasn’t very pleasant.

“I understand that some people weren’t being helpful and she was trying to see how many seats were left on the bus etc, but a smile on the face and some pleasantries wouldn’t have gone amiss, it was us having to endure a bus journey, not her.”

Cathy added: “There was no word of compensation or anything, staff in the station were lovely, but we had to approach them and ask.”

The D&E coach took the couple with other passengers to Edinburgh, despite making a wrong turn. The Harrogate train was held up for them to catch in time.

Inverness Councillor Richard Laird, who was due to travel to Edinburgh for a flight abroad, lashed out at Virgin for leaving rail passengers stranded at Inverness with the late call-off.

He said: “It’s an absolute nonsense.

“It was said that there wasn’t enough staff. But they are taking the mickey, surely?

“There was only one coach to take about 100 people and it was clearly not going to be enough and there was a huge scrum to get seats because there were no staff to take control.

“I decided that I wasn’t going to wait for the next coach, if there was one, and drove to Edinburgh for my flight.

“But I do feel sorry for the Virgin staff who took the abuse because it wasn’t their fault the company did not provide enough of a crew for the train.

“It is poor because we are at the height of the tourism season.”

Stewart Nicol, chief executive of Inverness Chamber of Commerce, said: “It emphasises once again just how important good transport links are to the rest of the UK and this actually just underlines how poorly we are served.

“You are going to get operational issues with air and rail travel, but it is not dozens of trains we are talking about here.”

A spokeswoman for Virgin Trains said: “We’re sorry to customers affected by the part-cancellation of this service.

“We provided alternative transport to ensure customers could reach their destinations and any customers delayed by more than 30 minutes are eligible for compensation via our delay repay scheme.”

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