The great thing about the Edinburgh Festival is that it attracts people from all over the world.
On a rare child-free foray to the capital this week, we ended up in the Hard Rock Café sitting next to a couple from Hamburg on one side and a family from Florida on the other.
Scotland and the festival are a destination of choice for tourists all across the globe but quite what our foreign friends make of our transport system is a continual worry for me.
Auld Reekie is pretty well served by regular buses and trams.
However, it’s the country’s rail network that continues to let the side down.
I travelled in a group of 10 from Kirkcaldy, on the first Saturday afternoon of the Fringe and was disappointed to find the train we had planned to catch at 2pm had been cancelled.
Never fear, I thought, I — and the 100-strong contingent already waiting on the platform — can easily wait the 10 minutes or so for the next scheduled service.
So imagine our horror when said train rolls into Kirkcaldy with just two carriages.
Packed like sardines, our situation worsened stop-by-stop and I decided to highlight the situation via social media.
My post was met with a swift response from ScotRail, who helpfully informed me that services would be busy (it doesn’t take Sherlock Holmes to work that one out) and that I should plan ahead (we had done).
I was also assured every available carriage was in service that day and that there were two, three, four, five and six carriage trains running from Kirkcaldy and Edinburgh during the day.
Perhaps so, but right then that didn’t feel sufficient and I decided not to chance the inevitable melee at midnight and caught an earlier train home.
Speaking to a train guard a few days later, I learned the late journey had indeed been “like a zoo”, leaving him fearing for his safety as passengers fell around drunk everywhere.
Sadly we’ve all become used to it in Fife, however much we try to plan ahead.
The promise of extra services and extra carriages every year is welcome, but it’s a hollow gesture when demand continues to outstrip supply.
And while Fifers are resigned to their fate, one can only imagine what visitors from further afield make of it all.
