West Lothian women with sight loss calling for free rail travel for blind people

dailyrecord.co.uk:

A West Lothian woman with sight loss is calling on the Scottish Parliament to back free rail travel for blind and partially sighted and their companions.Amanda Whitfield is backing the Fair Rail campaign by Sight Scotland and Sight Scotland Veterans.The call for a new national policy comes as Sight Scotland and Sight Scotland Veterans have been contacted by people with sight loss who are concerned about the inconsistency across Scotland around rail travel concessions for their companions.Feedback found public information about concessionary schemes and companion discounts is misleading and is causing confusion to both passengers and rail staff.Amanda, from Whitburn, suffers from sight loss due to a condition called Stargardt disease.She said: “I go everywhere by bus only because of the free companion travel – that’s the reason I use the bus over the train, because of the concessionary rate for whoever is with me.“I’d rather take the train as the bus can be so unreliable, especially in the darker nights, which reduces what vision I do have even more.“I’d take the train more if I could, but with the cost of living it’s too expensive to always pay the fare for my companion and I can’t expect my sister or whoever is with me to pick up the cost.“The train has better facilities too, for example access to a toilet, which makes life much easier when I’ve got my wee girl with me.

There is also more space on the train as I’m not always able to get on the bus with my buggy if a wheelchair user is already on.

If we could get free companion travel on the trains like what we have on the bus, it would make life so much easier.”Freedom of information requests made by the charity revealed that while most local authorities and SPT offer