More Fife Circle discontent

She observed that this would appear to be another negative impact on the Fife Circle which links the communities of the Cowdenbeath-Lochgelly area with Edinburgh.

Ms Ewing said: “It has come to my notice that, as of this Monday, the train for Edinburgh that leaves Glenrothes with Thornton at 07.18 will no longer stop at Kinghorn, Aberdour or Dalgety Bay.

“Scotrail are advising that any passengers travelling between those stations and Edinburgh Gateway, Haymarket or Waverley will have another service within 30 minutes and that those heading for South Gyle will need to travel into Haymarket to get a connecting train.

“I have a number of issues with this. Firstly, the change itself will be a significant inconvenience to many of my constituents who will see their daily commute severely disrupted, and, secondly, because of the poor publicity and lack of notice for this change.

“The first communication I had from ScotRail about it had the timetable change information buried at the foot of an email about how they would be dealing with the autumnal build-up of leaves on the line. Yes, leaves on the line, that old chestnut!"

The MSP added: “Constituents have been left to pick up information on various local grapevines, there appears to have been very little publicity and no consultation in advance of this change. Online searches still lead one to pre-change timetables that claim to be valid until December.

“Scotrail must have known in May that leaves would be coming off the trees in October. Even if this timetable change is absolutely necessary, people could have been alerted to it long before now, it could even have been highlighted in the published May-December timetables.

“Scotrail’s treatment of passengers on the Fife Circle routes is continuing to fall well below what I consider acceptable. They keep telling us that the service will get better but this latest change is another retrograde step and I want to see these stops reinstated.”