A £35,000 pay rise for boss who can’t make the trains run on time

Punctuality falls, but Network Rail chief now gets £800k

THE boss of Britain’s railway network is set for a large pay hike despite the firm posting a fall in profits and punctuality.

Mark Carne, chief executive of Network Rail, has lined up a £806,000 pay package after a dire year, according to the operator’s annual report.

His total pay is likely to be a 4.5pc increase on the £771,000 he took last year.

The award will raise eyebrows because it comes at a desperate time for some commuters.

Yesterday Southern Railway introduced an emergency timetable allowing it to cancel up to 350 trains a day. Owner Govia, which is 65pc-controlled by the GoAhead Group with the rest owned by Keolis, has previously blamed its poor service on problems at London Bridge station.

Network Rail owns the UK’s stations and track on which rail firms are dependent for their service.

The latest accounts for the track operator, which was returned to the public sector in 2014, show an 18.7pc fall in profit to £411m. The quantity of freight moved in billion tonnes per kilometre plunged to 17.8 from 22.7 and its own figures showed that more than one in ten trains arrived late – more than in the previous year.

Carne, 56, who spends his spare time restoring old clocks, received a £675,000 salary which was flat on the year. He received £67,000 in pension payments, and benefits of £17,000 including a discounted season ticket, private medical and life assurance, and a car allowance. The married father of three is also in line for a £47,000 annual incentive linked to ‘sustainability of business performance’.

This means the award is dependent on passenger survey results and the value of investments and safety. Network Rail says the bonus would not be paid for three years and is dependent on these obligations being met.

But buried in the annual report it says: ‘No specific targets would apply for this assessment.’

This means that rather than using figures from company results to base the target on, a committee makes a decision on whether it should be awarded.

A spokesman for Network Rail said that Carne’s salary and benefits of £692,000 were the same as last year and his pension of £67,000 was £12,000 less than last year.

He said: ‘If the obligations are not met the value of the deferred amount can be reduced, including to zero.’

He also said the firm has been set up as a not-for-profit organisation with any earnings reinvested to improve the business: ‘What really drives us is not profits but running a safe, reliable railway for today while continuing to invest in building a bigger, better railway for the future.’

Network Rail blames the poor punctuality on its network, stations and platforms for having to deal with more passengers than they were designed for.

This has meant timetables squeezed to full capacity, with little leeway for delays.

It is investing £100m a week on improvements as part of a railway upgrade plan aimed at expanding capacity.

Last month a National Rail passenger survey, the Transport Focus Spring 2016 report, showed the proportion of commuters satisfied with rail punctuality has fallen by 4pc over the past 12 months.

Only 61pc of people commuting to work by train were happy with the reliability of their journey.

Network Rail says: ‘We acknowledge that we need to improve, particularly in London and the South East.

‘We are determined to improve performance and are working closely with our train operating companies to do so.’