There seems to have been a lot less noise about the abolition of peak fares on ScotRail services - “for good” from next Monday - than there was when these more expensive journeys became a reality again less than a year ago.

In many ways, it feels much longer ago that peak fares were reintroduced, following a pilot programme which had scrapped them. So much has happened since then.

However, what does stick in the memory is the politicking over the reinstatement of peak fares from opposition politicians at Holyrood last autumn.

Labour MSP Sarah Boyack said then: “This pilot was a rare success story from an SNP Government typically mired in chaos and failure.

“This scheme has been sabotaged by SNP incompetence at every turn, but peak-time passenger numbers have still soared.”

As I observed in a column in The Herald at the time: “So it was a success story, but there was ‘SNP incompetence at every turn’. Eh?”

Transport Scotland last year calculated the cost of the full-year subsidy provided by the Scottish Government for the removal of peak fares by the time the pilot scheme ended on September 27, 2024 at about £40 million.

The impending permanent abolition of peak fares from September 1, revealed by the Scottish........

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