Published: Friday, 5th March, 2010 4:47pm

Taxi dash for Thistle match

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A Largs Thistle fan was caught in further train chaos this week and had to spend £30 to reach Barrfields Park in time for kick-off after a 'nightmare journey' from Glasgow Central on Saturday.

Jim Laing, who lives in Clarkston, left Glasgow Central at 11.45am on Saturday but had to get off at Johnstone and get a 75 minute bus journey which went to Irvine station where there was supposed to be a connecting train which only went as far as Ardrossan Harbour.

However, the football supporter was amazed to arrive at Irvine at 2pm to see the train immediately leave to go on the rarely used line to Stevenston, and was told he had to wait an hour until the next train.

At this point, the Largs supporter decided to get a taxi, costing £30, to Barrfields Park, and made it in the nick of time as he made the kick-off of 2.30pm.

He said: "It was a nightmare. The communication was dreadful and nobody really seemed to know what was going on. If I had waited, the whole journey would have taken four hours. We were told to change at Johnstone for Kilwinning and nothing was explained The bus took an inordinate amount of time and then to arrive at Irvine, only to see the train leave, was unbelievable."

A spokesman for Scotrail said: "On Saturday, there were a lot of engineering works on Saturday which affected Glasgow Central-Ayr, Largs and Ardrossan services. There were, for example, no train services between Johnstone and Irvine.

"These engineering works were flagged on our website some 12 weeks in advance and remained on website until concluded. There were also station announcements and posters about the works."