Scotsman Bulletin Friday 3 November
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00:00 (upbeat music)
00:02 - Hello, welcome to the Scotsman's Daily Video Bulletin
00:08 for Friday, the 3rd of November.
00:11 We're approaching Christmas time
00:13 and I'm joined by our transport correspondent,
00:17 Alistair Dalton.
00:19 Alistair, before we get to the travel chaos
00:22 that impacted all those going through
00:24 Edinburgh Waverley Station last night,
00:26 I just want to reference the front page of the Scotsman.
00:29 We led on the latest with Nicola Sturgeon.
00:33 There was a confirmation from the UK COVID inquiry
00:36 that there was no reason, legal or otherwise,
00:39 that Nicola couldn't confirm
00:43 whether she had deleted her WhatsApp messages.
00:46 Her spokesperson reissued a statement last night
00:50 that said again that she was cooperating fully
00:52 with the inquiry.
00:54 There was still no clarification though
00:56 around whether a deletion of messages did take place or not.
01:00 We've seen Kate Forbes, the former finance secretary,
01:04 be quite upfront about her position.
01:05 We've heard Humza clarify his position
01:08 over the past week as well.
01:10 So there is increasing pressure on Nicola Sturgeon
01:14 to confirm what she did with these messages.
01:17 We also haven't heard from Jason Leitch over the past week.
01:21 He was the one that really got the ball rolling
01:23 with early reports that he had deleted messages daily
01:27 were the initial reports.
01:29 And certainly that was wound back.
01:30 We also had an exclusive on the Edinburgh Film House,
01:34 Ferguson, that it had received a boost
01:38 of about 300,000 pounds,
01:40 which will go a long way to helping it reopen
01:42 for next year.
01:44 Fingers crossed that comes together.
01:46 Alistair, you and I were in a fairly unusual situation
01:50 yesterday.
01:51 It's not as though we haven't all experienced trains
01:54 being cancelled or delayed.
01:56 But last night, basically all trains going in and out
02:01 of Edinburgh Waverley were cancelled
02:02 from just before 5 p.m.
02:04 until basically the last trains usually run.
02:07 We were called up and then can you talk me through
02:09 from you arriving at the station
02:12 and just what you learned from there?
02:14 - Yeah, so as you say, Dale,
02:17 I was at Waverley shortly after five o'clock,
02:20 which was just after the incident happened.
02:23 There were hundreds of people
02:25 and pretty much every train was marked
02:28 either delayed or cancelled.
02:30 And Network Rail, which runs the infrastructure,
02:33 they say that this was caused by a power surge,
02:37 which led to the signals being unable to work.
02:40 And in fact, Network Rail have told me this morning,
02:43 the scale of the surge was such
02:45 that it effectively fried everything in the system.
02:49 Just all the backup systems,
02:50 some of which were only installed and tested last week,
02:53 were just not able to cope with that.
02:55 It looks like every train was cancelled,
02:58 as you mentioned from then on.
03:00 ScotRail saying alone,
03:02 they had around 300 trains cancelled,
03:05 but there were six other operators which used the station,
03:09 which were also badly affected
03:11 and trains coming towards Edinburgh
03:13 were effectively turned around
03:14 and sent in the other direction.
03:18 From my experience, there was information
03:20 on the indicator boards about what was happening,
03:25 but I think there wasn't a clear consistent messaging
03:29 over the public address system about the likely timescales.
03:34 And I thought it was unusual that,
03:36 although many of passengers would have been following
03:40 social media feeds from the rail operator
03:43 to see what was happening,
03:45 at about 6.15, Network Rail tweeted
03:47 that an engineer had been dispatched
03:50 and was expected to arrive at the location at 7 o'clock.
03:53 And I don't recall that being communicated
03:56 to people on the platform,
03:58 although there were many staff from many train companies
04:01 who perhaps would have passed that information.
04:03 That may have, would have helped people decide,
04:06 rather than hang on to make alternative arrangements,
04:08 perhaps get a bus or taxi instead.
04:11 And there were a variety of announcements,
04:15 some are automated about individual cancellations,
04:18 some about the overall situation,
04:20 some were clear, some were very difficult to hear.
04:23 So even though there was a major incident
04:25 at Edinburgh Waverley during the festival in 2019
04:28 with a huge number, many more people affected,
04:31 there doesn't appear to be fully lessons learned
04:36 about how to deal with something like this.
04:39 - Alistair, I know just walking along Princess Street,
04:43 I mean, I made the quick decision,
04:45 but as you say, I saw a lot of people standing around
04:48 looking for information, almost looking for direction.
04:50 I made the early call to go and catch a bus home
04:53 and Princess Street was as busy as you would see it
04:56 in terms of people waiting at stops to try and get home.
04:59 My bus was full heading home,
05:02 but the communication about whether the power
05:04 would be restored before that sort of 11 p.m. time
05:08 seemed mixed.
05:09 The one thing that was communicated though,
05:12 late in the evening was for passengers impacted
05:15 to keep hotel and taxi receipts.
05:18 Can you talk me through that because that seems unusual?
05:22 - Yeah, so there's a system called delay repay
05:26 that if your train is more than 30 minutes late
05:28 or canceled, you can claim a refund.
05:31 And there's quite an efficient online system
05:33 you can do that.
05:35 But in this case, clearly there were many cancellations
05:38 and it went well beyond that.
05:40 There was an element of replacement buses put on,
05:43 but it was very limited.
05:44 And yes, it was really quite late in the evening
05:46 that Scott Rowe were tweeting about people being able
05:49 to get refunds for taxis, for even hotels.
05:53 And I'm told people on social media talking
05:55 about hotel prices in Edinburgh skyrocketing last night,
05:59 which is perhaps unsurprising.
06:01 But some people perhaps would have taken a taxi,
06:04 maybe spent as much as 150 pounds traveling
06:06 through to Glasgow and not thought they could claim
06:09 and perhaps not getting a receipt.
06:11 So yes, that perhaps should have made clear,
06:14 but perhaps in Scott Rail's and Network Rail's defense,
06:19 they may not have known the scale of the problem
06:22 or how, or hoping perhaps it was gonna be fixable
06:26 much earlier because all the trains were sitting
06:28 in the station and I'm guessing as soon as the problem
06:31 was fixed, they could start perhaps moving.
06:34 So it was a difficult situation, but yeah,
06:36 perhaps something that should have been communicated earlier.
06:39 - And Alistair, just to finish up, key takeaways,
06:42 what do you think the lessons to be learned were maybe
06:45 from this, there seemed only a couple of replacement buses
06:50 that were put on late last night.
06:52 I noticed some criticism in and around that as well.
06:54 - Yeah, well, since the pandemic,
06:57 there has been a shortage of that sort of thing.
07:01 There's been problems with drivers that's affected
07:04 the whole bus industry.
07:06 I don't know the exact situation,
07:09 but I think there's less available.
07:11 And I imagine that it's the sheer scale of the incident
07:15 could cause problems maybe at that particular time of day,
07:18 it was very busy, a lot of buses and coaches
07:21 already in service.
07:22 But I suspect that both Scott Rail and Network Rail
07:26 and the other operators will be revisiting what they learned
07:29 from this major disruption I mentioned in August, 2019,
07:35 which were probably thousands of people in the station
07:40 unable to get home and have another look at where things
07:45 could be improved, particularly on improving communication
07:48 and telling people what their options are,
07:50 rather than just say they should think about making
07:53 their own travel arrangements, which isn't terribly helpful.
07:56 - You can read how things panned out throughout the night
08:00 on our live blog, it's at scotsman.com.
08:04 There'll be updates about compensation, et cetera,
08:07 throughout today, as Alistair has advised,
08:10 if you kept receipts, please dig them out,
08:12 because if you were one of the passengers impacted,
08:15 you'll need that down the track.
08:17 You can also read a piece just wrapping in
08:22 the wider implications of this from Alistair on the site.
08:25 I just head towards the navigation bar
08:27 and the transport tab later today.
08:30 Please follow us on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter.
08:34 We'll deliver you all the fallout from this,
08:36 as well as the latest from Gaza and details
08:39 of the latest Scottish independence paper are out today.
08:43 Thanks very much for joining us.
08:44 (upbeat music)
08:47 (upbeat music)
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