First ScotRail

First ScotRail

Rèile na h-Alba (Scottish Gaelic)
Class 158 Express Sprinter at North Queensferry in 2009
Overview
Franchise(s)	ScotRail 17 October 2004 – 31 March 2015
Main region(s)	Scotland
Other region(s)	North West England North East England
Fleet size	311
Stations operated	344
Parent company	FirstGroup
Reporting mark	SR
Predecessor	ScotRail (National Express)
Successor	Abellio ScotRail Caledonian Sleeper
Technical
Length	3,032.0 km (1,884.0 mi)[citation needed]
Other
Website	www.scotrail.co.uk at the Wayback Machine (archived 2015-03-16)

First ScotRail^[1] was a train operating company in Scotland owned by FirstGroup. It operated the ScotRail franchise between October 2004 and March 2015.

On 17 October 2004, First ScotRail took over operations from the incumbent franchisee, National Express. First ScotRail operated most commuter and long-distance services within Scotland, and some services to northern England, as well as the Caledonian Sleeper to London. Of FirstGroup's four train operating companies, ScotRail was the second largest (in terms of number of passenger journeys 2013–14) after First Great Western at the time of the termination of its franchise.

During April 2008, Transport Scotland granted a three-year franchise extension to First ScotRail. In May 2009, First ScotRail announced a crackdown on fare-dodging due to abuse of the Flexipass ticket system. One month later, it was alleged that ScotRail's passenger figures were substantially inflated and that 7.2 million less passenger journeys had been actually made; the matter became politically charged but did not impact the extension decision. In June 2012, the Scottish Government announced that the Caledonian Sleeper services would be split off from the ScotRail franchise. Following its unsuccessful bid to retain the franchise in 2014, First ScotRail transferred operations to Abellio ScotRail on 1 April 2015.