Rail fare rise twice wages’
Where the railways went wrong.. and how to fix it
OUR rail fares are rising twice as fast as wages.
A study by union the RMT found fares rose 32% in nine years and weekly earnings 16%, using the RPI measure of inflation.
If fare rises were pegged at the lower measure of CPI inflation, they would still have risen 36% faster than wages in the period.
RMT chief Mick Cash said it was a “scandal”.
Barely a day goes by without another nightmare rail tale. For the third Sunday running, Northern Rail cancelled dozens of scheduled services as new timetable disruptions persist. That’s the “new” timetable introduced back in May.
Fares increases are about to be announced, while customer satisfaction goes the other way.
Research has found the rail companies are the least trusted of 13 consumer industries except car dealers, due to problems with train punctuality and reliability.
How did an industry once so admired hit the buffers so hard?
For once Margaret Thatcher is not to blame. One of the few good things the ex-PM ever did was NOT privatising the railways.
It was, she realised, a bad idea as rail would always need plenty of government subsidy – and was a beloved part of Britain’s heritage.
British Rail had got rid of its old-fashioned image by replacing steam trains with sleek InterCity diesel and electric ones that ran at 125mph and were the focus of one of the 1980s’ best ad campaigns: “Let the train take the strain.”
Her successor John Major, though, was too weak to stop his right-wingers pushing through plans to sell off the railways.
So the idea became a key part of his 1992 manifesto for an election he was not expected to win. When the Tories did in fact retain power he let the ideologues create the most damaging model of privatisation.
Major liked the romantic idea of recreating the big four rail companies, based around regions such as Great Western and Southern, which existed from 1923 until nationalisation in 1948.
It was a sensible notion, as it would have created proper rail firms. Instead, he was again pushed by his more ideological ministers into creating a model that involved breaking up the railways into more than 100 organisations and selling as many as possible.
Wide expertise was lost in this scorched earth policy.
Track and infrastructure were hived off as a separate company, Railtrack.
This was subsequently flogged off but went bust and had to be rescued by the Government. Opera- tions were split between 25 firms, many of which also went bust and had to be saved by the state. The engineering department was split into 13 companies. Again several collapsed – most recently Carillion, which had to be rescued by Network Rail. BR’s well-regarded research unit was disbanded and its coachworks mostly closed. We have ever since suffered from the consequences of that disastrous decision, which lies at the root of today’s troubles. Take the recent chaos on timetables.
NR draws these up on the basis of demands by the train operators, which have contracts with government to run particular services.
However, no one bothered to check if there was enough space on the tracks to accommodate all the extra trains that the operators wanted to run.
Moreover, NR produced draft timetable plans late, so operators had no time to prepare for new schedules by, for example, training enough drivers.
This was partly because NR’s regulator, the Office of Rail and Road, put the firm under pressure to cut back on the number of timetable staff, which the ORR felt were an unnecessary luxury.
To worsen matters, NR failed to deliver some of the track improvements, particularly electrification, needed for the extra trains.
This had a knock-on effect, as some of the old diesels used on these lines had been earmarked for other parts of the network.
Moreover, in the rush to implement plans, drivers’ rosters were changed arbitrarily, with the result that they were in no mood to volunteer for Sunday shifts.
At this point, enter Transport Secretary Chris Grayling. With so many organisations involved, he is the only person with power to ensure co-ordination between them.
After all, the Government has a huge say on railways as it owns NR and determines franchise terms.
So Grayling could have stopped the massive timetable changes of May 20 – but he did not.
Later he said: “I do not run the railways.” Yet he makes many of the decisions that affect them and wants to take credit for improvements. He does not, however, want to take responsibility for things that have gone wrong.
His admission he is no rail expert, after three years in the job, surely qualifies him for an early exit.
It is not just the timetable chaos that has created the crisis on the railways. The franchising system used for the past two decades no longer works properly. This year’s collapse of the East Coast franchise led to the Government taking over the operation. More franchises are likely to go bust because passenger numbers are falling for the first time in more than a decade. Why? We can no longer rely on trains being on time. The overall picture is clear. The system’s various players are not singing from one hymn sheet. British Rail was not perfect but had two advantages over today’s set-up. Firstly, all those involved – operator, engineers, commercial managers – got together and worked out the service. Secondly, ministers could not intervene in the railways’ day-to-day running. We would have nothing like the current mess if railways were controlled by one organisation at arm’s length from government. That must be the next Labour administration’s aim. Christian Wolmar’s latest book, titled Railways and the Raj, is published by Atlantic Books.