Governments must bury their differences to boost railways
It is becoming a tale of two railways. There may be two lines crossing the Border, but the way the system is run on either side shows signs of an increasing divide – and I blame politics.
Scotrail, which runs the vast majority of trains within Scotland, has been part of the Scottish Government since 2022. But then LNER, the main east coast crossborder operator, has been in UK Government hands for nearly six years.
Control does not appear to be the issue, it’s how things are operated. If you’re a passenger in England, you’ll still be enduring intermittent, but significant disruption from paydisputesthathavedragged onfornearlytwoyears.inscotland,that’sthankfullyreceding into memory after deals were struck following major industrial unrest in both 2021 and 2022.
Likewise, travellers south of the Border faced acrossthe-board station ticket office closures until the plan was ditched by the UK Government in the autumn. By contrast, Scotrail announced far more limited plans, involving a few ticket office closures and reductions in the opening hours of most of the rest, and these appear to have been quietly shelved.
In the year of an expected generalelection,ican’tseehow the SNP Scottish Government could now go ahead with these when its Tory counterpart at Westminster has closed the doors on the issue – at least for now.
There’s a third area of divergence that’s even more ideological, over the UK Government’s move to force train operators to run services during strikes. Clearlypromptedbythechronicdisruption, it’s been championed by Conservative ministers to the extent they have even included routes in Scotland where they’d like to see trains running during walkouts – even though this is a devolved matter.
I’m told the Scottish Government’s Transport Scotland agency has responded by paying lip service, apparently taking part in an industry consultation exercise over the so-called “minimum servicelevels”inlisten-onlymode. Sodespitewhattheukdepartment for Transport’s map shows, during any future dispute commuters should not expect to see trains running fromthelikesofcowdenbeath, Helensburgh and Tweedbank.
Uktransportsecretarymark Harper told the Scottish Conservatives party conference in April last year that he wanted to reset relations with his Scottish Government counterparts, talking about “sensible dialogue” while acknowledging there wouldn’t always be agreement. I wonder if that discussion counts.
Political differences threaten tofuelneedlessmorebadnews for the railways, albeit that could change this year if there’s a new resident in 10 Downing Street. The remaining industrial disputes must get settled, and promptly, which would also keep the question of minimum service levels as a theoretical one.
The UK Government should alsobemoreconvincinglysupportive of the big picture the Scottish Government appears tobealreadysignedupto–that a prosperous and growing rail sectorisvitalforbotheconomic growth and tackling the climate emergency. That means giving more people the confidence to give trains a try.