WILD weather battered the West coast again this week, causing major disruption to travel and leaving rail users outraged.

Network Rail suspended services between Ardrossan and Kilwinning, including the Harbour and Town stations from 6pm Wednesday until 6pm on Thursday with the route to Largs also being affected as they deployed engineers to monitor conditions and repair damage.

Planned engineering work at the weekend didn’t seem to have any effect, as trains were unable to run between Ayrshire towns and Scotland’s biggest city where many locals earn their living.

On Tuesday, services were running from Kilwinning to Glasgow until around 12pm when signalling problems caused almost all trains in Ayrshire – the Kilmarnock to Glasgow line being the exception – to be suspended, leaving many stranded and wondering how they would get home from work, college or university.

A rail replacement bus service was in place with various permutations for those travelling to different towns across North Ayrshire.

Reports of freight and cargo trains still using the lines when Scotrail services had been cancelled were confirmed by Network Rail who said: “The majority of freight trains are diesel so they don’t need the overhead wire to run.

"When they (the overheard wires) are lashed the power fails because it trips.

"The electricity is not reliable in these situations and people could be trapped.

"Freight trains don’t have windows so don’t have as much of any issue with debris getting thrown up.

"The safety of the passengers is also paramount.” Scotrail’s Twitter account has been constantly inundated with requests from passengers wanting to know what was happening.

To their credit, the social media workers replied to as many as possible whilst keeping a level head as those who were trying to get to and from work and their place of study became more and more irate.

A spokeswoman for ScotRail said: “The extreme weather conditions late on Thursday night and into Friday morning made it necessary for Network Rail to inspect rail lines across the network before allowing passengers to travel.

"As soon as it was safe to do so, services were restored in a controlled manner.

“Unfortunately, damage to overhead lines and signals caused by the deteriorating weather, and planned engineering works by Network Rail over the weekend, meant that further disruption occurred.

"Passengers travelling to Ardrossan and Largs were advised to travel to alternative stations and board replacement buses.

“We would like to thank customers for their patience and understanding as we deal with the challenges presented by the severe weather.” CalMac Ferry services between Ardrossan and Brodick were subject to cancellation and disruption for most of the weekend.

Across the country a lot of services were in the same boat with the Largs to Cumbrae ferry being constantly cancelled or delayed since last Wednesday afternoon.

A CalMac spokesman said: “Safety is our number one priority in the extreme weather conditions that we have been experiencing over the past week, if ships’ masters think it too risky to sail they will not sail.

"It is inevitable that there will be some delays and cancellations in such extreme conditions and unfortunately the travelling public will be inconvenienced.

"We do strive constantly in these circumstances to keep our customers as up to date as possible to enable them to make alternative arrangements and our staff work tirelessly to get services back to normal as quickly as possible as the weather allows.”