Future shock

It’s been an unexpectedly turbulent time for railways recently. On the downside, the DfT’s decision to take over Southeastern services a couple of days after this issue of Rail Express hits the shelves (see Headline News, page 10) took most by surprise. Not least, because the same joint venture behind Southeastern, Govia, was as recently as June awarded a contract extension by the DfT for the GTR group of services.

As is sadly so often the case, the railway seems to have become a political football, with politicians congratulating themselves on the swiftness of the decision to strip the operator of its franchise. Wrong on two counts, of course. The fact is that an existing contract wasn’t renewed. That’s very different from taking back a contract and simply follows in the footsteps of TfW and ScotRail.

But more disturbing is the underlying supposition that only the operator was at fault. By the DfT’s own admission, the misreporting of public sector funding goes back to 2014. The fact that it has taken seven years to come to light raises important questions – so far unanswered – about the effectiveness of the monitoring of franchises by, er, the DfT. While the undeclared money has apparently been claimed back, the real victim is the railway industry, which has suffered another blow just when it needs all the support it can get to recover from the effects of the pandemic.

At least there have been some bright spots, not least the opening of the Northern Line Battersea extension in September (see page 36) and the planned launch of the

‘Lumo’ open access ‘plane buster’ on the ECML (see Headline News, page 12), just a week or so after publication of this magazine. Rail Express will, of course, be on one of the first trips to report back to you, our readers, what the latest instalment of railway history in the making looks and feels like.