Rail: are they wheelie on track to deliver better service?

There is rather a lot of misinformation in this debate. As a long distance commuter (1hr 45min each way daily) for 10 years and a regular traveller for 35 years before that , as well being a chartered engineer with friends in the industry the main issue is generally not the TOC (train operating companies,) except for a few notable exceptions, but the part of the railways that is in public ownership, namely Network Rail. I watch contracts that a commercial organisation would complete in a few months takes a year or more. The refurbishment of Ipswich station, installation of a lift and the bus car and access road contracts have all run on for unbelievably long periods and would close down any commercial retail operation if it took so long. I understand Network Rail has reduced the productive professional engineering staff compliment to barebones and those remaining are being treated like dogs. I suspect the place is full of accountants who have not got a clue as to how their penny pinching is destroying engineering competence and heritage. We need radical thinkers in place at the top who have an engineering background.

I am staggered by the action of our railway unions and even the department of transport. For a long time our railways have suffered from a lack of investment. We now have a railway network that is little better than Victorian times. Old rolling stock, diesel engines, tracks that are affected by anything other than a sunny day, shocking out of date stations and then to compound this on Southern Tracks a ludicrous action by the RMT over drivers and guards and there actions. The lack of investment is one major issue but the lack of interest, accountability and control over our railways is truly appalling. And then to top it all we have annual fare rises far outstripping inflation and it just happens. No discussion. Do it.

Get rid of the Ministry of Transport, remove the minister him/herself and create a new department which is sub divided into roads, rail and air and then managed and controlled by experts in those fields and make them accountable for there actions. To get our roads and rail to where they should be will take 10-20 years but if we carry on as we are it will never happen.

Until then take the franchise away from it’s current owners, impose the action to remove guards from trains, It happens elsewhere in the World (and even here in the London Underground-ever heard of that RMT) and ensure that any fare increases are linked to the performance of the train company (for every average minute you are over the agreed punctuation time you get 0.1% off any proposed increase on that business).

The root cause of the problem as with most what are strictly public sector domains is a lack of investment in the infrastructure and resources essentially we never recovered from the hammering the war brought to the UK rail network only to be hammered due to political dogma and shortsightedness in the Beeching era. Yes we did get some minor benefits from the 50’s Modernation Plan but it would appear poorly managed with untried and untested technology. The same applies to the Advanced Passengerr Train APT saga and dare I refer to TSR2, Harrier and EE Lightning 1 developments elsewhere. Most rail passengers especially those affected by the Southern dispute will not realise that the majority of rolling stock in use dates from pre-privatisation when you and me as taxpayers owned the rail system and that this items together with vast areas of infrastructure was carved up and virtually given away at low cost to the private train operating companies and to the numerous middle men set up to make profits rather than to provide a service. The truth hurts but there is no guarantee that a civil service led public rail system would work any better but one thing it could greatly assist with if managed properly is in bulk buying setting cost levels for prcurement and standardisation which inevitably saves costs as most car manufacturers are doing with building small ranges of chassis variants on which to base their visual designs.

In the south east and many other parts of the country a better service isn’t possible in rush peiods owing to the removal of platforms and tracks into major cities especially London. Most trains are now full length ( 12 coaches – longer will require new signalling) 3 less at St Pancras, 5 less at Kings Cross and various reductions at many other termini. There are also few tracks. Yet we are experiencing an increase in trravel owinbg to the big increase in populationand congestion on the roads. So whatever you are bing promissed it will be almost impossible fo it to be delivered and most of thrse platform removals have been taken over by new buildings which would haveto be removed. HS2 will have little impact as it will remain important to run high speed trains to provide connections to major centrs not on the new high speed line. So expec things to get worse gradually. The private companies can’t do anything and most of the rfeduction in capacity was undertaken by BR in the 1970s and1980s.

As a 30yr veteran commuter on Brighton mainline, I can tell you the union dispute is only a small part of the overall problem. For example, this week, an ASLEF walkout day with no Southern service and Southern commuters diverting to (the parallel) Thameslink. How on gods earth then could a peak Thameslink train arrive in ‘short formation’ (8 cars instead of normal 12), now absolutely doubly rammed, and then on top of that, arrive in London 20mins overdue? – all with the tracks virtually clear due to the strike? It’s GTR, the same operating company. Couldn’t they have prepared? Dangerously overcrowded was an understatement.
Just a sample of hundreds of similar stories I can tell you about travelling on the Brighton mainline over the last two years. How about the week before (Thameslink), eight journeys made, seven delay-repay claims submitted, every journey either over 15mins late or cancelled. Note there is *no* union dispute on Thameslink – it has been DOO since the last century. Don’t blame it all on the unions. The whole set up is a shambles.

Northern Rail has emailed to say they will not respond to any more of my complaints. Transport Focus are totally uninterested and allow them to act with impunity which makes them a publicly funded non-entity. Why have a regulator who doesn’t regulate? Why have a privatised public service who are allowed to ignore complaints. The minister for transport Chris Grayling is aware of this and has done nothing.