Full steam ahead with Victorian enterprise

Routine shutdowns of railways as extreme weather worsens isn’t acceptable so let’s find inventive spirit of our forebears

As ministers in charge of the response to the Covid pandemic found, the task of balancing risks when lives are at stake can be an extremely difficult one. The danger is that we become so paralysed by fear that we retreat from the world entirely in an attempt to stay safe.

The unprecedented decisions to shut down Scotland’s rail network twice within three days because of bad weather were doubtless made with the best of intentions – and the fatal Carmont rail crash in mind. Had trains been allowed to run and someone been killed, the people who made the decision would have had a life on their conscience. So we do have considerable sympathy for those required to make such calls.

However, rail industry warnings that such disruption could become increasingly common – with extreme weather linked to climate change a growing problem – suggest a defeatist attitude to the challenges ahead. We should never accept that a mode of transport as important as the railways can grind to a halt on a routine basis because of the weather. Instead, we need to rediscover the enterprising flair of the Victorians who built much of our railway network and redesign safety systems to ensure widespread shutdowns never occur, or do so only on the rarest occasions. In the 21st century, using foot patrols to check the tracks for problems feels decidedly 19th century. Surely there are technological methods to achieve the same aim far more quickly. If not, they need to be invented.

Meekly surrendering to the storms of climate change and allowing our railways to become an unreliable service will cause real damage to the economy and more people to turn to cars and planes. This would be a disaster for the country, but also a missed opportunity. There is money to be made in developing new technologies and systems that increase the robustness of vital infrastructure.

The response to Covid – lockdown – was necessary because of the lack of other options, although questions remain about the restrictions’ length and timing. If the response to climate change is “shutdown”, we are in real trouble.