Fife trains

[b55ailsa]

Why did ScotRail cancel the Edinburgh to Inverness via fife trains.
With this fife has lost direct routes to Inverness and Aberdeen Glasgow. within the last 15 years.
I know you can change at Dundee and Perth but if your train is running late or cancelled you can be waiting for a while for a connection.
For example only way going from fife mainly inverkeithing Kirkcaldy to Aberdeen direct is lner or the sleeper in the early hrs.
Nothing for Inverness
Nothing direct to Glasgow instead you need to change in Edinburgh or even Dundee depending where in fife you from.

Come on ScotRail reinstate these or is fife no that important for long distance anymore

 

[hexagon789]

Why did ScotRail cancel the Edinburgh to Inverness via fife trains.
With this fife has lost direct routes to Inverness and Aberdeen Glasgow. within the last 15 years.
I know you can change at Dundee and Perth but if your train is running late or cancelled you can be waiting for a while for a connection.
For example only way going from fife mainly inverkeithing Kirkcaldy to Aberdeen direct is lner or the sleeper in the early hrs.
Nothing for Inverness
Nothing direct to Glasgow instead you need to change in Edinburgh or even Dundee depending where in fife you from.

Come on ScotRail reinstate these or is fife no that important for long distance anymore

Because it allowed simpler connections between to/from Inverness trains at Stirling (same platform) than at Perth (often requiring a long trek from Plats 1 or 2 to/from 4 or 7).

It gave an increased frequency of trains from Stirling to Inverness.

It also allowed the semi-fast Edinburgh-Perth to be cut and instead one of the Fife stoppers extended to Perth instead to provide a continued hourly Edinburgh-Perth as previously the Inverness trains were effectively extensions of the Edinburgh-Perth semi-fasts.

It is essentially a revision to the pre-Sprinter era timetable when Edinburgh to Inverness trains went via Stirling but they were less frequent as well then, so it did make more sense.

 

[alexf380]

Apart from the one direct Fife to Glasgow train a day, which was removed way back at the start of Covid, there's always been a change necessary to get to Glasgow so there's nothing new there. Fife also hasn't had a direct Aberdeen train for a few years since the Edinburgh to Dundee/Arbroath stoppers were introduced. There's usually a decent enough (i.e. under 15 mins) connection at Perth onto the Inverness train so it's only in times of disruption that you're likely to be hanging around for long.

 

[Dfatcontroller]

Fife is a very large county with large spaces of green between the medium/small towns (and now one City). The OP makes it sound like "Fife" has its own singular major station which requires connections to everywhere else in Scotland/the World.
Quite frankly, not one location is large enough to support all these connections by itself, this then requires feeder (local) services to a railhead, which are Perth/Dundee for the North and Haymarket for South/West.
If you were to call the Inverness services at all locations within Fife, you are extending the journey time on the long-distance services, making them less attractive and losing custom to the limited stop competing coach services.

In my experience, residents of "Fife" think Fife is far more important than anywhere else in Scotland.

 

[daodao]

An express service from Edinburgh to Inverness via Kirkcaldy, calling at selected stations only between Edinburgh and Perth, would be 15-20 minutes quicker than running via Stirling, which already has a direct service to Inverness (from Glasgow). It is also significantly shorter in distance. Diverting these intercity trains via Stirling is a retrograde step, not only for Fife.

 

[norbitonflyer]

With this fife has lost direct routes to ......and Aberdeen ....... within the last 15 years.


Come on ScotRail reinstate these or is fife no that important for long distance anymore

Leuchars is in Fife, and still has trains to Aberdeen

 

[Falcon1200]

An express service from Edinburgh to Inverness via Kirkcaldy, calling at selected stations only between Edinburgh and Perth, would be 15-20 minutes quicker than running via Stirling, which already has a direct service to Inverness (from Glasgow). It is also significantly shorter in distance. Diverting these intercity trains via Stirling is a retrograde step, not only for Fife.

I agree. What would help would be the long promised hourly Inverness service, alternately from Glasgow and Edinburgh, giving Stirling a two-hourly inverness service, the Edinburgh trains should run via Fife and call at Inverkeithing and Kirkcaldy.

 

[Inafinus]

Apart from the one direct Fife to Glasgow train a day, which was removed way back at the start of Covid, there's always been a change necessary to get to Glasgow so there's nothing new there. Fife also hasn't had a direct Aberdeen train for a few years since the Edinburgh to Dundee/Arbroath stoppers were introduced. There's usually a decent enough (i.e. under 15 mins) connection at Perth onto the Inverness train so it's only in times of disruption that you're likely to be hanging around for long.

On this note, I've often wondered why there hasn't been more appetite for a direct Dunfermline (or a terminus further east) to Glasgow train via the Longannet/Alloa line (and, one assumes, additional new stations along the route).

Is this total fantasy? Would it completely exceed the capacity of the Alloa-Stirling line?