YP Letters: Rail firms responsible for such fiascos should lose franchises after Scarborough cricket chaos

THANK you for your timely Editorial (The Yorkshire Post, August 21) concerning the trains to Scarborough, following the front page item on the despair felt by Sirius Minerals because of the malign effect which the failure of these trains is having on their business.

Tom Richmond: Passengers pay price while rail bosses catch first class gravy train

I was one of the very many cricket fans and others on the already late-running train to Scarborough the previous day which terminated in Malton, and to which you referred in the Editorial. I, and several others, managed to continue our journey to Scarborough by the excellent Coastliner bus, arriving there one and a half hours later than the train should have done. I was not prepared to risk an early evening train back to Leeds so I stayed at the cricket only until mid afternoon. My day at the coast had been reduced to only three and a half hours.

I heard that, in fact, the outbound train did not return to Liverpool from Malton, but with hundreds of passengers stranded on the platform at Malton, the decision was eventually made to permit them to re-embark and the train continued to Scarborough.

To add insult to injury, half the carriages had been closed to passengers on the original journey because of problems with the doors, thus packing the already full remainder of the train. Apparently passengers were, after all, allowed into the previously forbidden carriages on this Malton to Scarborough stretch.

It was clear to us all that the decision to force us off the train at Malton was so that its return to Liverpool would be on time and only the eastbound train would have appeared on the train company’s list of late-runners – never mind those stranded in Scarborough who had intended to catch the return train there.

The sooner Northern and TransPennine Express lose their franchises, the better.

From: Ian Smith, Colston Close, Bradford.

IN his column (The Yorkshire Post, August 17) on the human toll of rail woe – and why a lack of political clout is to blame – Bill Carmichael wrote: “And that, I suspect, is precisely the reason why Ministers are proving so resistant to the One Yorkshire option.

“They are not afraid it will be a failure – they are afraid it will be a success.”

Just as the EU are afraid that the UK will be a success Bill.

And those stories brought a few tears here as well. Government is all about policies, systems, procedures and power – hardly ever about people.