Christian Wolmar
CHRISTIAN WOLMAR meets ScotRail Alliance Managing Director ALEX HYNES, to learn more of the ambitious plans for rail north of the border
Scottish rejuvenation.
SCOTLAND is different. And it is becoming more so, given the continued dominance of the SNP and the emphasis on devolution.
The railways are no exception. There is, as ScotRail Alliance Managing Director Alex Hynes says, a different attitude to the railways in Scotland compared with south of the border.
As he puts it, when he had the same job at Northern Rail, “the attitude was very much that the railway is costing x million every year, we should try to make it cost half x million”. In contrast, in Scotland, “they say, we are spending x million on supporting the railway, how do we get the best out of that money?’
It is, to put it in purely political terms, the difference between a neo-liberal approach (everything is costed and nothing valued) and a social democratic pattern (the state is seen as a way of providing good services).
I travelled up north for a day to talk to him, and find out exactly how Scotland was faring now that the Abellio franchise has bedded in, two and a half years after the company took over from FirstGroup.
It is perhaps this fundamental difference in ethos that has resulted in Scotland having a different structure for its railways. Hynes, therefore, is not just managing director of the train operator (ScotRail), he is also MD of the local Scotland Network Rail Route. That gives him a unique position in the British rail industry, as he is able to lead an integrated management team, making decisions over all aspects of the railway.
And he loves it: “I would not have left Northern for another franchise, but this job is completely different. At board meetings, my commercial and engineering directors sit in the same room as the Network Rail people in charge of the infrastructure, and that makes changes much easier to push through.”
He gives a couple of examples: “The Edinburgh Festival is the world’s biggest cultural event and gets bigger every year, so we needed to run extra trains. That would have been far more difficult if I weren’t sitting round the same table as Network Rail.”
Another change has been the introduction of later trains on a Friday night between Edinburgh and Glasgow: “I suggested that, because coach services run 24/7, and within a couple of weeks it was implemented with services starting at 0100 and 0140.” Because of engineering work, it is unfortunately not possible to do that on a Saturday night.
Hynes has been in the job for just six months, after making his reputation at Northern, and sees his role as improving the railway at a time of enormous change. He chose a good time to migrate north of the border, and was fortunate in that he was on ‘gardening leave’ between jobs. He spent his time being a mystery shopper around the network.
The new franchise is jam-packed with goodies, at a time when Network Rail also has a big investment programme. There is electrification not just of Edinburgh-Glasgow but also of several other lines, which seems (unlike south of the border) to be progressing with only relatively minor delays.
Remarkably, again unlike in England and Wales, Network Rail has underspent its budget, and so there may be the occasional unscheduled enhancement that could be squeezed in before the end of the current Control Period in March 2019.
There is the big station upgrade at Glasgow Queen Street, where a ghastly 1960s office block is being replaced with an airy new glass structure, as well as other improvements - notably the arrival of some 200 new or refurbished carriages. That will bring the total up to 1,000, a massive expansion of 25%, and will lead to increases in frequency on several lines.
Most notably, next May ScotRail will introduce an InterCity service (it had to ask permission from the Department for Transport to use the name) between Scotland’s seven cities - Edinburgh, Glasgow, Perth, Stirling, Dundee, Aberdeen and Inverness. Best of all, these will run using HST sets cascaded from
Great Western, which otherwise would have been scrapped after the arrival of the new Hitachi IEP trains.
The HSTs will be decked out in a rather retro grey livery and Hynes makes no apologies for using trains that are 40 years old: “They will be completely refurbished, with many more tables than in the current layout and with seats aligned with windows so that people can enjoy the Scottish scenery.” (I suspect Hynes, a Mancunian, will take out Scottish citizenship if Nicola Sturgeon ever gets her way).
He points out that these remain the fastest diesel trains in the world, and are hugely popular with customers. Indeed, I suspect there will be a few pilgrimages to Scotland by rail enthusiasts once the HSTs arrive.
During his ‘mystery shopper’ trips on ScotRail before taking up the job, Hynes found there was not a lot of ‘fun’ on the railway, and so he has encouraged the installation of pianos at big stations. He believes that such small things do more to improve the media image of the railways than lots of information about trains: “We have had lots of good coverage through initiatives such as raising money for Motor Neurone Disease or putting station names in Gaelic across the network.”
Media sentiment is important to Hynes and ScotRail. This franchise is different because it is a country’s national railway. This is also why it was much easier to create an alliance between Network Rail and the train operator, although this alliance is more of an operational one than a financial one such as the old South West one (which, in fact, was its undoing).
Because of the railway’s high profile - and high usage with a quarter of a million passengers daily, a number that is bound to rise once all the improvements bed in - it’s not all plain sailing. Hynes does have to cope with three masters: Dominic Booth, who heads Abellio; Mark Carne, chief executive of Network Rail; and the Scottish Government’s transport minister, the ambitious and highprofile Humza Yousaf.
And while Hynes says he has a good relationship with the unions, he is under pressure to reduce costs. He recently announced that SR would welcome voluntary redundancies, which immediately led to demands by the union to ‘sack Abellio’.
However, spending time with him on the trains, it is clear that he has an easy relationship with staff and wants to bring them with him to create “the best railway Scotland ever had”, a slogan he dreamt up personally early in his stay at ScotRail.
With such a massive increase in rolling stock, the electrification and station upgrades, and with the backing of a Government keen to support greener forms of travel, as well as his attention to detail, Hynes is confident he can live up to his slogan.