Fifteen years ago I did a round-Scotland trip by train for The Herald to see how good or bad things were, speak to passengers and get a sense of what needed to improve, and things have changed a lot since then. Last week I did a train trip up through the middle of Scotland (or tried to) and was left wondering how much of it has changed for the better.

What I wanted to do was take the train from Glasgow to Pitlochry and back again. A friend had bought tickets for a show at the theatre for my birthday so we planned to get there more than an hour and a half before the curtain, have a bit of lunch and wander up. I had a ticket for the 10.41am from Queen Street which would get into Pitlochry, via Perth, at 12.23pm, or so I was told. The show was at 2pm.

Things started out fine but not perfect. The announcement board at Queen Street was on the blink, totally blank, so I had no idea which platform my train was leaving from although I did find a member of staff with an old-school list on a piece of paper who told me what I needed to know and off I went. I later discovered that the entire ticketing and payment system was busted that day, meaning passengers were unable to check journey times online, buy flexi-pass tickets or pay by card at some ticket machines.

But my train left on time, I changed at Perth, met my friend and got on the 11.53am to Pitlochry. I could tell there might be a problem because a group of men in beards and tabards were pointing at the train and rubbing their chins. About ten minutes later though, after a few false starts, the train got going and off we went. I must admit: I could feel my anxiety levels rising a bit because we had to be in a certain place at a certain time but maybe it would all be fine.

So there we were, countryside speeding past, all the rest of it, very good, then suddenly we’re slowing down, then we’re stopping, then there’s a shudder and a........

© Herald Scotland