Compensation call after rail misery
TRANSPORT: Leaders in the North say “something should be done” to make up for the “real hardship” suffered by passengers and firms across the region as a result of the Northern rail company timetable chaos.
Details of compensation for those affected have yet to be announced by the operator.
TRANSPORT LEADERS in the North say “something should be done” to make up for the “real hardship” suffered by passengers and firms across the region as a result of the Northern rail company timetable chaos.
Details of the special compensation package for those affected by the weeks of delays and cancellations on Northern services following the botched introduction of a new timetable on May 20 have yet to be announced by the operator.
At an extraordinary meeting of Transport for the North’s partnership board, attended by senior transport officials from all of the affected areas, members said any scheme should “certainly include season ticket-holders”.
But the strategic body’s chairman John Cridland told The Yorkshire Post that the three-hour meeting behind closed doors yesterday also discussed the losses suffered by passengers and businesses who had not signed up for season tickets in advance.
He said: “This could be lost business or lost income because of being unable to get to a place of work or unable to get customers to a business. That is much harder to define than season ticket-holders, but we spent time discussing real hardship that some people have faced and the fact that we believe that something should be done about it.”
He added: “It will be a Northern compensation package authorised by their partners and what the Secretary of State has previously said was that there should be a compensation package and he wanted to consult Transport for the North.
“It’s not our decision in isolation where compensation should go, but in addition to season ticket-holders, we also discussed how we might help with losses by passengers and businesses where that caused real hardship.”
During the meeting, members were given an update on Northern’s current performance levels, which have been improving in recent days.
After a number of services were cut as part of an interim timetable in the North-West to stabilise the service, Mr Cridland said he had received assurances from Northern that it was working “towards delivering a restored timetable service by the end of July”.
He said: “As the voice of northern communities, we are standing up for passengers and businesses who have been let down. We’ve seen first-hand the distress that this disruption has caused and the very real impact this has on people’s lives.
“Our immediate focus must be on giving passengers the reliable rail service they deserve.”
Separately, 83 Labour MPs from across the North have written to Transport Secretary Chris Grayling calling for a return to public ownership and control of the railways as the current franchise system is “not fit for purpose” The letter says: “It is what the majority of the travelling public want, and it is what they deserve: trains which run, and run on time. It is the very least that our constituents should expect.”
We’ve seen first-hand the distress that this disruption has caused.
Transport for the North chairman John Cridland.
I’VE NEVER been to Japan and so I’m relying on media reports and television documentaries for my information and observations.
But, back in November, it was reported that a train operator in Japan had apologised for the fact that one of its trains had pulled out of a station 20 seconds early. It wasn’t that anyone had missed their train as a result, but simply that trains in Japan don’t leave stations early – nor, under normal circumstances, do they arrive late.
In 2016 it was reported that the average delay for the Japanese bullet train, the Shinkansen, was less than 60 seconds. Figures published by the relevant ministry showed that the usual reasons for trains running late, if they ever do, were more often than not passengerrelated: people opening train doors after they had been closed, or continuing to board trains after they should have departed, or people trespassing on the tracks or committing suicide on them.
Otherwise, left to their own devices, trains tend to run immaculately to schedule.
I remember watching a documentary on the subject and it appeared to be a cause for abject personal shame and disgrace for a driver to fail to keep to the timetable – to the second.
A correspondent in the media who regularly commutes to and from work by train in Japan said that in his experience that, as a matter of course, conductors apologise repeatedly and profusely to passengers for any delay – both on board the train and at every station.
To British ears, all of this might sound a little fanatical, and yet why can’t we operate rail services at a guaranteed high level of comfort and reliability? And if not, then why not, and what can be done about it?
We certainly pay enough for the “privilege” of travelling by rail and so why shouldn’t we expect to travel in comfort and for services to keep to their schedules? Why should we have to stoically maintain our traditional stiff upper lip in the face of poor timekeeping, appalling reliability, frequent union strikes and poor quality of service – especially on our commuter lines? To paraphrase an exasperated Rex Harrison in
My Fair Lady: “Why can’t the UK be more like Japan?”
I live in Yarm. A hundred yards up the high street from my house is the George and Dragon pub where the idea for the very first passenger train service pulled by a steam locomotive, the Stockton & Darlington Railway, was conceived in 1820 and came into operation in 1825. I can look out of my window at the great 43arch, 760 yard-long, 7.5 million bricks and 139,000 cubic feet of stone viaduct that carries the rail line from Middlesbrough to York over the Tees and over the town.
Such structures stand as a testament to the conviction and commitment of Victorian railway pioneers and engineers. Of course, if they were being built today the work would be given to the likes of Carillion, and we all know how that story ends.
Japan manages to operate a super-efficient rail system even in the face of typhoons and earthquakes. In Britain services grind to a halt because of leaves on the track and the “wrong type” of snow falling, and they may now be faced with the apparently unforeseen problem of new train sets being too long for the platforms they have to stop at.
And then of course, southern commuters have suffered the consequences of interminable union strikes because train drivers are apparently incapable of pressing a button to operate the carriage doors and therefore need a conductor to carry out that onerous task for them. The trains will still won’t run on time.
Most telling of all is the fact that should a train in Japan leave the station 20 seconds early, the train operator is required to offer a humble and very public apology for any inconvenience caused. In this country we have just experienced weeks of widespread chaos as a result of new timetables being introduced without adequate preparation and in the absence of enough drivers to operate the new services.
Far from resigning as an admission of his responsibility for the misery being suffered by hundreds of thousands of rail users, Transport Secretary Chris (the failing Crossrail-ing) Grayling simply deflects any criticism by blaming everyone else. One of his principal targets was Network Rail boss Mark Carne who was then awarded a CBE this week for “services to the rail industry”. You couldn’t make it up. A spokesperson said the timing of the announcement was “unfortunate”. Really?
When it comes to operating an efficient and reliable rail service that we can be proud of, the question recurs: “Why can’t the UK be more like Japan?” Answers on a postcard, please.
Should a train leave 20 seconds early, the operator must offer a public apology.