I’m not as optimistic as Sir Peter

The most interesting contribution at RAIL’s National Rail Recovery Conference was from Network Rail Chairman Sir Peter Hendy CBE, because he attempted to blend optimism and pessimism.

His admission that there should be fewer trains on the network for the foreseeable future attracted the headlines - and clearly it makes sense. It’s going to take a long time to get commuters back, so restoring the service to the peak levels makes no sense at all.

Moreover, the working from home phenomenon was beginning to have an impact before COVID, and there will undoubtedly be a large number of people who will change their lifestyles permanently. Sir Peter was actually worried that Wednesday would become the only peak day of the week.

His other notable suggestion was that with different patterns of use, such as more leisure travel and fewer commuters, engineering work might be done at a different time. When, though, seems a difficult question to answer.

What he did not say is that attracting people back to rail will be impossible without a radical reworking of fares. As I have mentioned several times, the whole concept of peak fares should be abandoned. Yet I am writing this on a day when fares are going up by more than the Retail Price Index for the first time in a decade. This is beyond insanity.

There are, yet again, murmurings about ‘flexible season tickets’, already introduced on Northern. But I understand that the Treasury is being absolutely obdurate over any risk to the revenue flow - a rather laughable concern in the light of what is happening at the moment.

While I concur with Hendy’s gloomier predictions, I cannot share his optimism. There are fundamental reasons as to why the ‘normal’ situation will never return, and they will become more apparent all the time.

The exodus from London, caused by the combination of Brexit and COVID, means an estimated 8% reduction in the population. Foreign visitors will be slow to return and there is bound to be a long-term impact of the terrible messaging that has scared people off the railways.

Big companies such as BP and HSBC have proposed big reductions (50% and 40% respectively) in their office space requirements, and no doubt others will follow. So, I still reckon a return to 60% of January 2020 loadings is years off. I do hope he’s right and I’m wrong.