RDG ‘plan’: little more than a welcome PR exercise

If you’re reading RAIL you’re probably not the target audience for the Rail Delivery Group’s (RDG) plan that was launched at St Pancras station on October 30.

Reading through the plan, I was struck by it not really being a plan. It’s a combination of generalisations about how the rail industry wants to improve, sprinkled with initiatives that various rail companies are already doing, such as delivering new trains. My former colleague, Paul Prentice, now an RDG press officer, described it as a manifesto. That’s a fair label for what is a collection of pledges and existing commitments.

Nonetheless, pulling all the things the railway is doing together under one umbrella is a good thing. It builds a picture of a railway moving forward, keen to deliver what its customers want. To that extent, it is a PR exercise, despite RDG Chief Executive Paul Plummer’s denials on Radio 4’s Today programme. Better that he admitted his plan was an attempt to convince people that the railway is committed to improving. Be honest and admit that this plan is about influence.

What’s now needed is a clear plan from Network Rail for the 2019-2024 period that wisely and effectively uses its £48 billion funding. We’ve already seen NR fail to deliver what was promised for 2014-2019, particularly in renewals and enhancements.

Government is promising more money that includes a dramatic increase in renewals. Yet the problems that led NR to fall behind in 2014-2019 look like they’ll exist beyond 2019. Chief among them is the number of trains running, preventing NR having access to tracks. Of the others, NR must explain how it will be better prepared this time and its devolved structure must resist temptations to ‘gold-plate’ renewals beyond funding.