An elderly couple have called for ScotRail to provide an after-hours warm area after claiming they were left stranded in Dundee.
Susan Zappert, 71, and her husband Michael, 81, paid £176 for first-class tickets from Lanark to Stonehaven on December 27.
However, due to the bad weather caused by Storm Gerrit, their trains were disrupted and the 136-mile journey turned into a nightmare.
After getting a bus from Lanark to Glasgow, they caught a train to Edinburgh with the hope of getting north.
At Edinburgh Waverley they saw a train was scheduled to go to Aberdeen. But it was then cancelled, and staff said no trains were likely to run for the rest of the day.
Not to be deterred, the couple then went to the city’s bus station and booked a coach to Aberdeen, but were told it would only go as far as Dundee.
Susan said she tried to book a hotel while on the bus to Dundee but couldn’t get any internet connection.
She told The Courier: “When we got to Dundee we walked to the Premier Inn but it was fully booked.
“I connected to the wifi but found that the nearest hotel that had rooms was the Old Course in St Andrews, which you couldn’t get to because of flooding.
‘If it was any colder someone could’ve died’
“At that point, we went to Dundee Station, but we were told it would close at midnight.
“We asked the person at the station if we would have to go out in the cold and he said ‘yes, we would’.
“There were people walking about who obviously had the same issue – walking around with cases and looking lost.
“It was just a mess – it was freezing cold and if it was any colder somebody could’ve died.”
Susan feels more should have been done to ensure travellers had somewhere to go following the cancellations.
She added: “I don’t know Dundee all that well.
“A notice at the station would’ve been enough to tell us where we can go but there didn’t seem to be any structural thing.
“It didn’t occur to me that there wouldn’t be any rooms – that’s because there were a lot of people in the same situation.
“We weren’t needing anything more than a seat out of the weather.”
Susan managed to get a taxi from Dundee to Stonehaven, which cost £265. From there the couple collected their parked car and drove back to their home in Aboyne, Aberdeenshire.
She has also claimed compensation for the £176 train ticket.
ScotRail – station has to close ‘for security reasons’
A ScotRail spokesperson said members of the public are not permitted to stay inside Dundee Station for security reasons.
“Similarly, we are unable to require our staff to stay significantly beyond the arrival/departure of the last train as they require adequate rest periods between shifts,” they added.
They said that the provision of onward transport or accommodation “would vary significantly depending on the circumstances of the passenger/situation”.
The spokesperson continued: “But generally, we would be more likely to provide taxi transport to the final destination – though this is a measure of last resort which we only use when we are unable to get people to their destination by rail, replacement bus, or through ticket acceptance on other public transport.”
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