Ombudsman

RAIL’s verdict: There was an air of inevitability about the long-awaited launch date of an independent rail complaints ombudsman happening to fall on a day (November 26) of significant service disruption on various parts of the network.

This doesn’t appear to have been lost on our tweeter @KweenOfThones either, who was mildly amused by the obvious irony of this coincidental timing.

Fortunately, there is also a more serious point to be made here, in that the new Dispute Resolution Ombudsman will offer passengers further redress over common complaints such as poor punctuality or reliability.

It is thought that around 6,000 complaints will be referred to the service each year (see Network News, page 21), and it should give all rail users more confidence that they will achieve a fair outcome from the established complaints procedure.