Time for straightness and honesty
OUR railways are in a bit of a mess. There, we’ve said it. As a pro-rail publication, it pains us to have to point out when things are not right with the network we are all so attached to. But we also believe that honest thinking and straight talking (and vice versa) offer the best chance of sorting out problems and sadly there doesn’t seem to have been much of either in the rail sector in the last few months. The current industrial relations turmoil hasn’t come out of nowhere. Christian Wolmar’s clear exposition of the pre-Privatisation railway in his latest book (see Reviews, last issue) is brought up to date by Tom Haines-Doran’s soon to be published Derailed (see Reviews, p88) which makes some salient suggestions on, as he puts it, “how to fix Britain’s broken railways”. We are fortunate that the British public has great affection for the railways, though it is increasingly bewildered about their current organisation. A heckler at a recent event at London Marylebone honouring Adrian Shooter (see Headline News, p9) briefly disrupted proceedings by shouting “Nationalise the railways!”, seemingly unaware that that is effectively already largely the case. The confusion surrounding the transition to GBR (underlined by the nonsensical ‘competition’ for the organisation’s HQ) is likely to be with us for months, and possibly years to come. Yet, happily, it’s not all doom and gloom. Our analysis (see Headline News, p10) suggests that the fundamentals bode well for the future growth and development of the UK rail network. Whether those responsible for delivering it can indulge in straight thinking and honest talking remains to be seen.