Stefanie Foster

Keeping the wheels turning in unprecedented disruption

“There is a very British ‘Keep calm and carry on’ attitude on the railway, and a determination in the face of the current crisis to do whatever is necessary to keep vital services running for as long as possible.”

“The railway is probably better placed than other organisations to respond to such a crisis.”

THERE was a wide range of subjects about which I could have written in this issue - publication of the much-anticipated Williams Review (in whatever form we might have seen it), or possibly the rapidly declining fortunes of most of our franchises (more on this later).

What I was not anticipating was just how quickly the only subject on anyone’s mind would be a virus that just a few weeks ago was news from a distant shore, so removed from the UK that we all just got on with our lives.

At the time of writing (March 17), more than 1,500 people in the UK have been diagnosed with COVID-19, the disease caused by a Coronavirus, with experts suggesting that many thousands could be infected and not know it. With cases doubling by the week, by the time you read this the numbers will be significantly higher.

A growing chain reaction of people avoiding cities and cancelling their plans had already begun, before the PM’s announcement on March 16 that everyone should work from home where possible and avoid all unnecessary social contact in an effort to protect the most vulnerable. The inevitable consequence is that the number of people using the railway is falling dramatically and rapidly, and that’s before any restriction on domestic travel at the time of writing.

Secretary of State for Transport Grant Shapps told Radio 4’s Today on March 16 that the reduction in passenger numbers was already 18%-20% before the PM’s announcement. That is an unprecedented and enormous drop. We won’t know the full impact on passenger numbers for months, but what the RAIL team has witnessed on our own commutes and trips around the railway echoes Shapps’ figures - busy morning peaks at stations are feeling more like a quiet Bank Holiday weekend. Many readers have contacted us with similar stories, that they are travelling on eerily quiet trains with only one or two other people in their carriage. And, of course, the more passengers who witness this, the fewer who will want to travel.

All of this is piling extreme financial pressure on already ailing train operating companies that are now seeking emergency measures from Government to keep them afloat during the crisis, and without which they won’t survive to see the other side.

Shapps has said that while we still need people to be able to travel to some extent, we do need to consider how many trains we really need to run. “There is no point in running ghost trains, in the same way as there is no point running ghost planes,” he said, with around 75% of airline fleets already grounded. News reports are saying that the aviation industry is seeking in the region of £7.5 billion in government support to keep functioning.

The impact of this reduction in the fare box is far in excess of anything the franchises are able to withstand, and as RAIL went to press Shapps was meeting with operators to hammer out an emergency plan. He told Radio 4’s Today ahead of any meetings that “it’s quite clearly an exceptional international crisis and we need to be flexible as a country and react to that”.

Transport for London has already been experiencing reduced demand on its services, before any of this happened. Now, with passenger numbers on the Tube plummeting by 19% at the time of writing and with its bus patronage also significantly down, TfL was predicting a reduction in passenger income of up to £500 million.

As restrictions gather momentum, that picture will inevitably worsen across the country. We cannot begin to quantify the full effects that COVID-19 will have on the railway, and the situation is changing sometimes on an hourly basis, but some in the industry have described it as having the potential to cause “the biggest peacetime disruption to public transport”. It’s worse than that - it’s likely to be the biggest peacetime disruption to our entire way of life that anyone can remember.

However, let’s not forget that the railway is no stranger to unplanned massive disruption. Extreme weather and strike action are not in the same category as this pandemic, but many of the effects on the railway are similar in terms of passenger disruption, unavailability of key operational staff and the need for resilience planning through emergency timetables. The railway is probably better placed than other organisations to respond to such a crisis, since crisis management is an everyday requirement on the railway (although obviously not to this degree).

In an interview in the Evening Standard on

March 13, London’s Transport Commissioner Mike Brown said he did not envisage the Tube shutting services down at any point during this crisis. He pointed out that it even stayed open during the Second World War, and that 85% of the network was operating the day after the London bombing attacks in 2005.

There is a very British ‘Keep calm and carry on’ attitude on the railway, and a determination in the face of the current crisis to do whatever is necessary to keep vital services running for as long as possible. Without them, many of our critical healthcare professionals and emergency services staff might be stuck at home, rather than on the frontline where we need them most. It’s all well and good telling most of the population to work at home, but at the risk of stating the obvious, operational men and women on the railway can’t do this - you can’t drive a train from home. So let’s say thanks in advance to our railwaymen and women for what they’re about to be called on to do.

This is possibly the only time when this page will applaud the continued lack of publication of the Williams Review. While the smart money is on the delay being attributed to a disagreement about its contents, now would not be the time to publish it, even if everyone was in agreement. Major structural reform at a time of major national disruption just isn’t an option. The priority has to be simply to provide a basic service.

Who knows what kind of world we’ll be living in when this is over? It’s pointless to speculate. We don’t know what businesses will still be standing or how they will decide to operate in the future. Will there be a move towards companies shedding expensive office space, as they realise they can run their businesses more cheaply and efficiently with more of their staff at home?

We’ve been doing our own contingency planning at RAIL HQ to ensure that we can continue to bring you the best news, comment and analysis from across the railway, whatever happens next. Details of how to make sure you can keep reading RAIL in the coming weeks can be found on page 7.

The railway has weathered many a storm, and together we will weather this one too. Please stay safe one and all. R

Nigel Harris is away. ■