Analysis
Every two years, PAUL BIGLAND travels the nation’s rail network for a series of features for RAIL… and believes that despite some obvious punctuality and franchising issues, we tend to overlook how the railway now offers a much-improved, safer and more we
Evidence of rail impovement.
SINCE 2004, every two years RAIL has sent me off around the UK to experience the highs and lows of the country’s rail network. My 2018 trip appeared in RAIL 864-866. Now, I have been asked to describe (for better or for worse) how things have changed in that time.
Have things got better? Absolutely - and in so many ways, some of which we either don’t see or tend to forget.
If you’re a commuter who only travels from A-B on a Northern Rail service, your viewpoint is likely to be different to a commuter in the South East, or a summer leisure traveller to Cornwall or the far North of Scotland. My Rovers have allowed me to see the network from top to bottom - and back again.
Let’s look at trains first. In 2004, commuters in the South East were still riding around in 1960s Mk 1 slam-door stock, often with windows almost impossible to see out of because of vandalism. West Coast passengers were using locomotive-hauled stock on a railway that was still undergoing a difficult route modernisation, and which ran only five days a week.
Confidence in the railways was struggling to return after a series of fatal accidents culminating at Hatfield (2000) and Potters Bar (2002). Eurostar trains were still crawling through south London on ‘classic’ lines, as HS1 still only ran as far as Fawkham Junction in Kent. And the area around St Pancras station was just one vast building site.
Talking of stations, many were still awful places - such as the derelict Wakefield Kirkgate, which I voted Britain’s worst railway station, or Pontypridd, whose white tiled, airless waiting room I described as “as welcoming as an abattoir”.
I’ve also experienced many new services, and entirely new railways or reopenings such as Alloa and Ebbw Vale (2008), the Borders Railway (2015) and the Ordsall Chord, and even new operators such as Grand Central, which began running SunderlandKing’s Cross services in 2007 and Bradford-King’s Cross in 2010. I’m a regular traveller on GC’s West Riding services and I can vouch for their quality (they are persistent award winners) and how busy the trains are!
In the years that have passed I’ve also seen major improvements in the quality of rolling stock. The BR Mk 1s are now history except for a few charter trains, and slam doors are set to disappear completely on inter-city services. The size of the UK fleet is set to grow in a big way over the next few years, and the quality of the trains has changed completely since the days of the late (unlamented) Connex.
Fleet reliability has also changed for the better, with some sterling performances put in by trains such as the Siemens Class 350/3. I can’t think of the last time I was on a train that was a complete failure.
In the past few years I’ve travelled through more resignalling schemes than I can shake a stick at - even on former ‘cinderella’ secondary lines such as the Great Northern/Great Eastern Joint Line between Peterborough and Doncaster, which has undergone a £270 million rebuild in recent years.
On my 2018 trip I visited several major ones, including the 79-day Derby remodelling, the Wherry lines in East Anglia, Bristol and the Calder Valley. Traditional semaphores are in full retreat and we’re on the cusp of the next generation: Automatic Train Operation (ATO) on the Thameslink core route through Blackfriars.
While all the hardware changes are impressive, I think there’s one area that is sometimes unappreciated: just how much our railway stations have changed for the better - for a whole host of reasons.
Those of us with long memories will remember the BR days when station facilities were constantly cut back, buildings were demolished, and the best you could expect as a replacement was a bus shelter!
I mentioned Wakefield Kirkgate earlier. This was a grand station that had fallen into disuse and disrepair, was infamous for a rape and assaults, and was a place where you really didn’t want to hang around. Look at it now - it boasts a cafe, a Grand Central First Class lounge, offices and community spaces.
But to quote Tom Jones… it’s not unusual. Some of our stations have become destinations (look at St Pancras). Many now host successful businesses. A whole host of them have brilliant pubs and bars. I even know of one (Frodsham) that’s home to a pet shop and a hairdresser.
Others have stunning gardens (Hindley and Dumfries) or brilliant original artwork (Levenshulme), thanks to the hard work and commitment of volunteer station groups and the Association of Community Rail Partnerships (ACoRP).
And let’s not forget some of the excellent restoration work funded by grants from the Railway Heritage Trust - the examples are legion. All of them, together with
the train operating companies (TOCs) and Network Rail, are making the railway a better place than ever.
The railways have grown and improved in the past few years, and will continue to do so as electrification is expanded, new trains are delivered, frequencies improved, and HS2 is built.
One sector that gets neglected in my Rovers is freight, but it’s another that I have observed change and expand since 2004.
It’s had a knock back because of the sudden decline in coal, but stand on a platform on the West Coast Main Line and watch how many long, laden intermodals pass you at speed on a regular basis. You soon appreciate the importance of rail freight.
However, it’s not all plain sailing. There are also some tremendous challenges. For all the billions that have been spent, we face the unpleasant fact that punctuality is in decline - and that’s one of the most important things to the ordinary passenger, especially commuters who rely on the railways to get them to and from work.
The railway isn’t reliable, and it’s often overcrowded on some routes. And its reputation is suffering because of it. I see this on my own journeys as I document my travels on my own blog, and I’ve seen the changes through the past few years of writing for RAIL. There are a host of reasons for this (and plenty of theories), so I’m glad to see that Network Rail’s new Chief Executive Andrew Haines sees it as his priority.
There are other problems, too. The electrification programme has hardly covered the railway in glory, owing to cost-overruns, cutbacks and delays. Widespread chaos caused by the introduction of new timetables on Thameslink and Northern has further eroded the industry’s reputation, and long, drawn-out industrial disputes on several TOCs have not only damaged reputations, they’ve badly hurt businesses along the lines affected - especially in the North, where we’ve effectively had a six-day-a-week railway. Sometimes it feels the industry takes one step forward and two steps back!
I’ll mention another couple of things, too: the apparent lack of a coherent investment strategy from Government and the Department for Transport that has led to thousands of electric trains with life left in them but no home to go to; and no clear plan for electrification that would allow many of those displaced trains to replace diesels on secondary routes - benefiting passengers and the environment.
That said, I feel that the rest of the UK needs to take a leaf out of Scotland’s book. I’m always impressed by my visits to Scotland. ScotRail MD Alex Hynes says they’re delivering the best railway Scotland’s ever had, and I have to say I agree with him. In 2016, I observed that I could charge my laptop and get WiFi on a Class 158 on the Far North Line, but couldn’t do either on a brand new Class 700 through central London!
The railways need a long-term plan (as do its suppliers). It doesn’t have to be a cunning one, it just needs to be one that sees beyond Network Rail’s five-year Control Periods (welcome as they were compared with yearly budgets).
One final quibble: franchises. There’s been well-documented evidence that some are in financial trouble. Remembering Harold Macmillan’s famous riposte to a reporter’s question about what would change his plans (“events dear boy, events”), I can’t help wondering how what appears to be our present economic suicide mission through Brexit will affect the future…
Despite this, I remain positive about the future for rail. An industry that was once written off as one in decline has proved it’s anything but (here and elsewhere in the world). The problems I’ve mentioned aren’t insurmountable, they just need pragmatism and political will.
There are some great things to look forward to in the next few years, and I hope I can keep you entertained in 2020 when I next sally forth, Rail Rover in hand (or on my smartphone)!