| You can catch a high-speed train to get out of the country – but woe betide anyone planning to move around Britain at speed. And instead of returning the trains to public ownership and control when the franchises expire this autumn, the government is going to issue a whole new set of them... |
Waiting for a decent train service – and a complete rethink about how rail is run
WORKERS, JULY 2007 ISSUE
THIS NOVEMBER will see big changes for Britain's railways. During that month, many passenger franchises will be reorganised under new ownership, and the newly rebuilt and massively extended London St Pancras station will fully open as the final part of the high-speed line from London to the Channel Tunnel.
The contrast between these events due to happen during November could not be greater. The completion of the high-speed line through Stratford and North Kent will see Eurostar trains travelling at 186 mph to continental Europe. Next year, similar high speed services will also serve the Medway towns and the Kent coast. Britain will at last have at least one railway that is comparable to the purpose-built high-speed lines, not only in France, but across western Europe.
The trouble is that this line is likely to remain the only real high-speed line in Britain. The government has set its face against extending the new line to northern England and Scotland. The rest of the country seems destined to suffer from relatively slow, overcrowded railway services for many years to come.
Where's the vision?
Passengers are being treated to rehashed versions of private franchises instead of a public vision for a public service.
The French have recently shown that it is possible with existing rail technology to run at speeds of 350 mph over their new railways. Meanwhile huge numbers of people are turning to Britain's rail system as an alternative to the gridlocked roads. A government with vision would invest in a modern railway system that could rival any in the world. The new Channel Tunnel link shows that we have the engineering expertise to do it!
Instead, we are treated to a rehashing of the private operators running Britain's passenger services, with no real prospect of any improvements, and in some cases, services will take a definite turn for the worse.
Refranchising will affect much of the country, particularly the Midlands. The current Midland Mainline, Silverlink and Central Trains companies, currently owned by National Express, will disappear. So too will GNER which operates the East Coast Main Line. Virgin Trains, a company half owned by Branson and half owned by Stagecoach, runs two franchises – West Coast and cross country. The cross country franchise is now up for grabs, and will look very different come November.
The cross-country trains currently running from the south and south west to the north west and on to Scotland will cease. The many through passengers will be forced to change trains at Birmingham New Street, a station that is dark and unpleasant, and generally regarded as a place to avoid. There are real fears amongst rail staff that the overcrowding at the station will be dangerous.
All eyes are on the prestigious money-spinning East Coast services being relinquished by GNER now that the parent Sea Containers company has gone bust. Hot favourite to take over is rumoured to be Virgin, which has recruited the GNER management team to their cause. If Virgin win, they will have a stranglehold over services from London to Scotland on both East Coast and West Coast lines. GNER staff are aware of Virgin's reputation as a ruthless cutter of jobs, acquired when they first took over the West Coast route.
If Virgin does win the East Coast route, it is unlikely that the government will allow it to also run the new cross country franchise. The new company will be running local and regional services across the Midlands and into East Anglia, as well as the inter-city services currently run by Virgin, and with this mix the company may want to downgrade the operation, with any new trains being of a much lower specification than the current Virgin trains.
Central Trains is being carved up. Most of the services based around Derby and Nottingham will be combined with the current Midland Mainline company to form a new "East Midlands" company. As with cross country the quality of the train service is an issue once inter-city services are combined with local services.
Central's services based around Birmingham are predominantly being combined with the main line services run by Silverlink, to form a 'West Midlands' company. Some services into Birmingham will transfer to Chiltern Trains.
Local Silverlink services in London are transferring to what is described as a "concession", under the control of Transport for London. The concession is a long-term franchise to be put out to the private sector to bid for. In a controversial move, the new TfL concession will incorporate London Underground's East London Line, which closed recently for the preparatory work to commence. The publicly owned London Underground trains are to be replaced by private ones.
The unions fight back
This has provoked a massive campaign by the rail unions RMT and TSSA against further privatisation of tube services, at a time when private tube contractors are in the headlines almost daily for their failings.
The one positive outcome from all the Silverlink changes is that a number of stations currently managed by them will transfer to the management of London Underground. This will mean much greater levels of station staffing, and better pay and conditions for the staff.
All these changes will result in huge transfers of staff from one company to another, and inevitably there will be job losses (aren't there always?). Transferring between companies has become a way of life for many on the railways since privatisation, with staff watching bemused as the sign over the door is changed from time to time. Is it any wonder that many do not identify with their employer, and have instead retained an ethos of being committed to the industry as a whole?
Of course all this tinkering with a privately run and fragmented rail network is completely unnecessary. The rail unions are united in their call to bring the railways back into public ownership.
And it can be done at no cost. How many Labour MPs do you hear bleating that they can't take the railways back because it would cost too much, or divert resources from health and education? It is nonsense, of course. All they need to do is wait for the franchise to end, or wait until they hand the keys back as GNER have done. There was an opportunity missed!
It may not even be necessary to do that. It is clear that the Scottish Executive has been looking seriously at the possibilities of getting rid of ScotRail's franchise holders First Group (another bus company) and taking direct ownership and control.
Another opportunity that will be missed this year is to taking track-renewals work by Network Rail in house. Having taken maintenance in house, a move that has saved a fortune and massively improved performance, the next logical move was to take away the renewals from the private contractors.
But inexplicably, Network Rail has decided to reduce the current six contractors to four. The RMT, having threatened industrial action, secured assurances from the employers that no job losses would result when the change came. However, it is clear that some contractors are vying with each other to create the lean mean machine that will find favour with Network Rail, and jobs are being cut now instead.
Potters Bar
Network Rail itself is in trouble, having had to admit blame for the recent fatal derailment of a Virgin train in Cumbria. The parallels with the Potters Bar crash are self evident. Attempts at blaming individual staff for the poor state of the points are coming to nothing as it becomes clear that management processes are where the real problem lies.
It is noteworthy that shortly after the crash, the industry's safety watchdog, CIRAS, published a damning report on the degree to which safety was compromised in favour of production. Safety rules are being broken because of the often intolerable pressure being put on workers to "get the job done".
Ian Coucher, who is succeeding John Armitt as Network Rail's Chief Executive, is calling for a change in culture. He wants to "inculcate new values and behaviours amongst the staff". In a company which rides roughshod over staff contractual rights and union agreements, you can imagine what that means!
But what is really needed is a complete rethink of how Britain's railways are run. The trains should be run by the same organisation as that which runs the track. Owned and controlled by workers. Run for the benefit of the people it serves. And integrated with other modes of transport.