Rail bosses now blame timetable chaos on ministers

TRAIN chiefs blamed transport ministers yesterday as they were grilled by MPs over the rail timetable shambles.

The chaos which caused delays and disruption to hundreds of thousands of passengers was partly because of Government changes, they claimed.

Pointing the finger at Transport Secretary Chris Grayling and his team, they said timetabling staff simply ‘ran out of time’. The result was a meltdown on the railways when the timetable was introduced last month.

Outgoing Govia Thameslink Railway chief executive Charles Horton told the Commons transport committee the process for approving the timetable became ‘extremely protracted and was complicated by a number of changes’, one of

which was ‘a decision made by ministers’ in October 2017 to phase in the timetable.

Mr Horton, who fell on his sword last Friday after coming under massive pressure to quit, added: ‘The result was that we were into April before we had the timetable finalised.’

He admitted he and Mr Grayling did not have each other’s direct telephone numbers, but said there had been ‘dialogue’ with Whitehall officials.

David Brown, managing director of Arriva Rail North, which runs Northern Rail, said the Department for Transport had not asked for anything different to be done for the next timetable change in December.

He said the ‘full ramification’ of the chaos was not apparent until it was too late, adding: ‘We were literally only piecing together the rosters and diagrams evenings and days before.’

Committee chairman Lilian Greenwood, said: ‘How can people possibly feel confident that the December timetable change will be implemented effectively when it’s even bigger than the one in May?’

‘Rosters and diagrams’