Blind Widow Left Scared, Stranded & Alone By First Scotrail FOUR TIMES

LizzieT84

My mother-in-law came to visit us this weekend. That's not the vent... we get on very well and have lots in common.

The vent is with Firstgroup who operate the Scotrail contract. As my mother-in-law is totally blind (one of the things we have in common) she needs assistance with her train travel. She usually gets Journeycare (owned by Virgin I believe) to co-ordinate this. She travels relatively frequently to places down in England from her home-town of Perth so has had to use assistance a large number of times over the years. The job of the assistance is to meet you at your start station and to put you on the train, they will get you off the train and put you on to any connecting trains or into a taxi etc at the other end. It is a vital role and when, as a blind person, you use the service you are totally reliant on it or you will not end up at the correct destination.

My mother-in-law has never had problems with assistance other than at Edinburgh Waverley station (where we live... Edinburgh that is... not the station). My mother-in-law is slightly nervous of trains as once when she was getting off a train she fell right down the gap between the train and the platform (which is a big fall). She still uses trains though as when you're blind there aren't too many transport alternatives.

The last four times she has booked assistance she has been let down at the Edinburgh Waverley end.

She has written letters to Scotrail who have replied telling her that it was an isolated incident due to a one-off breakdown in communications on each occassion. My mother-in-law doesn't see four times in a row as being a 'one-off'.

Think of it from a blind persons point of view... I certainly can. You're on a train and you reach your station. You sit there waiting for the assistance you have booked to come on and get you off. Knowing that it has failed in the past do you try and get your own way off the train when you can't see where you're going or do you have to feel embarrassed by shouting out for a member of the public to help you because otherwise you will miss your station and end up stranded in some strange place? If you do get yourself off the train, how do you get to a taxi? If you try and move anywhere yourself you're likely to fall under a train... quite possibly a moving one. It's a scary enough world for a blind person without companies with a duty of care failing to take responsibility and allowing my mother-in-law to be left alone and scared in a busy station too scared to say anything because she's got a lump in her throat, she's feeling scared, vulnerable and very alone.

Shame on you Scotrail.

Lizzie

oh_heck

Shame on you Scotrail.


absolutely,that's disgraceful

rchddap1

Indeed. That is revolting.

LizzieT84

My mother-in-law would be more than happy to give her full story to any interested journalists.

trickytrolleys

she should contact her local paper or The Sun - thats awful and must be very frightening

aliasojo

For this to happen four times is a joke.

Can I just ask...did your Mother write one letter of complaint covering all incidents, or several letters after each individual incident?

This is very poor service indeed, I can only imagine what the poor woman was feeling at the time.

I was just wondering if they had been made aware previously after each event and STILL showed the same poor service (i.e none) or whether they were made aware after the fourth incident and your Mother has yet to find out whether the service has improved.

Regardless of the above though, it's still a disgrace that a potentially vulnerable person was put in this situation through no fault of her own.

cheekymole

Jeremy Vine on Radio2 likes those kind of stories vine@bbc.co.uk or telephone 0500288291

I don't know if mentioning MSE might help with their past links etc

LizzieT84

She's written on seperate occassions and the problem still hasn't been addressed. When you are dependent on a service and are let down it can be quite scary.

Poppy9

Perhaps next time to give her a bit more confidence she could have the assistance number programmed into her mobile phone. Then she could ring to ensure that the help she has booked will be on site. She should also tell the guard, if the train has one, when he checks tickets that she is due off at x stop and has booked assistance. Hopefully a good guard would check this happens.

It's absolutely appalling to leave someone stranded like this. Mind you if it was my MIL I would mind too much - but that's another story

Happyroly

Disgusting Scotrail.
That is awful, my dad was 95% blind and I would hate to think of anything like that having happened to him.
What about contacting BBC1's Watchdog? I bet they would be interested in her story.
Happyroly

LizzieT84

A good Guard will make sure disabled people get off the train at the right station and they very often do. On one occassion when my mother-in-law was just completely left stranded on the platform it was the train driver (the train terminated) who had to actually take her to the taxi as everyone else had disappeared.

Journeycare arrange the assistance and let Edinburgh Waverley know. When the Perth assistance puts her on the train they phone ahead to Edinburgh assistance to let them know she is on the train and make sure that it's all sorted (fail safe?). On many occassions the Guard will radio ahead just to make triple sure. All that can happen and Edinburgh assistance still fail to turn up.

Lizzie