RAIL readers have their say on: DfT and rail policy
In his Comment special (‘Williams must seize the moment’, RAIL 871), Nigel Harris raised several points that I liked, but the best was the fact that politicians point the finger at everyone but themselves.
For the past 30 years and possibly longer, politicians have forgotten who they work for. They have forgotten that they should be looking to our needs, because we pay their salaries through our taxes.
Successive governments have totally failed to understand how the railways should work. Government should set policy (for example, ‘all freight travelling more than 75 miles without stops must travel by rail where possible’).
Then to implement this, the operating companies would set out their transport and infrastructure requirements in order to manage the work, such as freight trains able to carry loaded road trailers and containers on dedicated freight lines above speeds of 150mph using electric or carbon-neutral power.
Network Rail would cost the requirement to implement the scheme, and present it to government for the OK. And it would be implemented bit by bit over a period of time almost regardless of the eventual cost, provided it is not going to bankrupt the companies concerned.
All these deadlines, which seem to me to be impossible to meet, should be abolished. The work is finished when it’s finished. Many Victorian schemes went way over budget and planned construction time, but they were still completed without all the finger-pointing and blame we have now. Funding for projects should come from the railway itself, with government only providing a percentage of cash required on huge pieces of work such as HS2.
The Victorians built thousands of miles of railway in 25 years, while we hardly managed to even work out a route plan for HS2. I have also noticed that people are talking about producing a railway suitable for the 21st century. Surely we should be planning and producing a railway fit for the 22nd century?
The Victorians built to last, while we have only made quick fixes and slight amendments. Besides which, infrastructure we desperately need in place cannot be used because some idiot allowed a supermarket, housing estate or factory to be built on the track bed.
The franchising system should have been a small number of franchises set for 20 years, after which the franchising companies should have been able to run their networks in their own right provided they made a good job of the first 20 years.
The Department for Transport is making a big hash of everything from inadequate parking in towns to reduced speed limits on main roads, and from a lack of integration between transport modes to construction of new routes and inadequate monitoring of fares pricing.
Surely it is the responsibility of the DfT to make sure travellers reach their destinations as quickly and efficiently as possible, and to improve the system where required?
To me, improving the system means removing outdated 150-year-old methods, and implementing new cutting-edge systems to take us the next 150+ years.