Corbyn’s #traingate adds to another day of chaos
Tuesday August 23 was an interesting day. I bought my copy of RAIL magazine ( RAIL 807), the RMT union announced another two-day strike, and Jeremy Corbyn sat down on the floor of a train!
Reading RAIL, the sole apologist for the RMT appears to be Christian Wolmar, who seems to think that there is some conspiracy in the Department for Transport that is denying a satisfactory outcome to the dispute between the unions and Govia Thameslink Railway and Southern.
In the past, I watched trade unions fight any innovation - for example, containerisation and the use of robots in car manufacturing.
Up in Scotland, ScotRail caved in to the unions. I suspect Virgin Trains East Coast will be a more formidable opponent.
Meanwhile, the slugging match with Southern goes on. A journey I took this week from Reigate to Victoria took one and a half hours each way, instead of 40 minutes. Redhill now has no direct off-peak trains to Victoria. Off-peak rail use is down.
Many countries happily run metro-type trains without a driver, let alone a conductor or any second person on the train. If the DfT had any sense it would develop such technology quickly, abandon HS2 and use the money to develop trains without drivers!
Now into this wonderful weird world of rail transport steps Jeremy Corbyn. If I planned to go to Newcastle with a wife and advisers, and wanted to be sure that we could sit together, I would book seats. Travelling on my own up and down to Liverpool, I never bother. I turn up early and find a seat - time is not an issue to me, so I avoid crowded trains.
I agree that train fares are confusing, but nobody seems to want to tackle the problem. And fares are not expensive relative to the past - try comparing a modern rail fare with a 30-year-old fare and then use the Bank of England Inflation Calculator. The result is fascinating. And to give another example, a 1964 Fiat 500 cost £499 then, and would equate to £12,000 now!
As for Corbyn’s programme of rail renationalisation, while the old BR did some things well the industry under government control could not innovate, did not want to expand and was in slow and possible terminal decline.
The system now moves well over two million extra passengers per year since 1995, but in any event the nation still owns the whole rail system - train operators just operate the trains either as a franchise or as direct contract.