Importance of timetables

In an article in the Daily Telegraph recently, Network Rail Chairman Sir Peter Hendy was reported as suggesting that timetables will be made irrelevant as train journeys become more frequent.

He added that railways should be treated more like the London Underground over the next decade, with customers judging trains by frequency, not by set schedules.

In some respects, Hendy has a point. If one travels in one’s own car or by coach, one does not know what time one will arrive. There will be a timetable for the coach journey, but that depends on traffic and weather. Traffic alone can lengthen a car journey by any amount of time.

Travelling by air does have a stated time of departure when the plane will leave the ‘gate’, but that actual leaving of the gate is dependent on airport activity and the time of arrival at one’s destination can be affected.

Only rail is judged by its performance set against the stated timetable, with passengers entitled to compensation if the rail operator’s performance fails to meet the timetable.

I believe that Sir Peter is trying to make an argument for the railway ‘family’ not to be punished for any failure to meet a timetable.

I will admit that I do travel on most London Tube lines on the basis that there will be, in all likelihood, another Tube train along in a short while. I have only ever been interested in the time of a first and/or a final service.

In some ways, London Overground appears to now work to a similar principle, but that is not

true of other train traditional services - short or long. On long journey services, passengers may have to change trains at hub junctions (Crewe or York, for example), and timings then become all-important to meet connecting trains.

With the railways becoming more and more a political football, and the blame being passed between the maintainer of the system (Network Rail) and the train operators, I am sure Sir Peter would like to have some breathing space for Network Rail and his staff. The same goes for the operators.

However, I do not see any government being prepared to stop compensation payments!

A J Slatter, Reigate