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ASLEF stepped back from its threat to boycott ScotRail’s ‘Inter7City’
HST fleet following safety mitigations, RAIL can reveal.
The train drivers’ union had previously said it would instruct its members “not to touch these trains” from August 20 2023 (the third anniversary of the Carmont rail crash) unless there were “significant improvements” in safety. But the fleet has remained in service without a boycott since then.
Now ASLEF Scottish organiser Kevin Lindsay has told RAIL it “re-evaluated the boycott based on the amount of work that’s been done which has improved the vegetation management, which has improved the weather management, and which has improved the speed at which the trains run”.
Lindsay said the union remained in “continued dialogue” with ScotRail, Transport Scotland and Network Rail over the way forward, and suggested that continued operation was still not a long-term solution.
“While HSTs don’t meet modern safety standards, the idea is that if we don’t have any crashes from hitting any trees, we’ll not have any issues. So, it’s a bit of a reverse psychology,” he said.
Contributing Writer rail@bauermedia.co.uk
“The costs involved in improving HSTs are just far too prohibitive. They would be better off buying new trains - and buying new trains is a challenge in any circumstance, especially in a cost-of-living crisis.”
Lindsay said that Scotland’s new prohibition on trains running during a red weather warning was unique across the wider British network.
“We’re looking at things differently, they’re looking to be more risk-averse, so they’re doing a lot more here in Scotland than they are anywhere else,” he added.
“That was one of the reasons that we decided to come back from that and continue to work with the
