Chiltern Railways’ Marylebone–Aylesbury service is unique as part of the route, between Harrow and Amersham, operates over London Underground infrastructure. At the start of November, both RMT and ASLEF called strikes which would have effectively shut down the Underground network. The ASLEF strikes would not have directly impacted Chiltern but the RMT strikes included signallers so that the LUL section of the route would have been shut. Chiltern therefore publicised that it would only be able to operate a very limited Aylesbury–Great Missenden shuttle service – effectively useless for the great majority of its passengers.
In the event, both trade unions suspended their industrial action and the Underground network operated normally throughout. So, passengers would reasonably have expected that Chiltern’s trains would be running too. Not so: despite the action being called off four days earlier, Chiltern still only operated its Great Missenden shuttle, stating that “although the RMT strike was called off on Friday, this did not give us enough time to re-instate all our services for this week because of the detailed planning required to run a safe and reliable service”.
Train operators, both management and staff, are dependent for their livelihood on a combination of fare paying passengers and taxpayers. Failure to reinstate the full service showed total disdain to their customers and to the apparently old-fashioned idea that there is an obligation to provide a public service. I doubt whether the late Adrian Shooter, Chiltern Railways’ founding father, would have accepted such an abject failure.
Sadly, Chiltern isn’t alone. Great Western and Northern are both suffering from large numbers of cancellations on Sundays, with insufficient numbers of drivers being prepared to work and managements seemingly unable to resolve this. If the industry isn’t able to deliver a reliable service, can it reasonably expect unquestioning continued high levels of support from the taxpayer?
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Certainly, the Budget didn’t suggest Treasury confidence in the industry. Despite rail’s environmental credentials, the only ‘new’ announcement was the £1 billion commitment to construction of the HS2 tunnel from Old Oak Common to Euston, although the way forward at Euston itself remains entirely unclear; presumably the search for a magic private sector solution will continue. The other announcements on rail schemes were simply a restatement of already authorised projects, for example electrification of the routes between Bolton–Wigan and York-Church Fenton.
It’s difficult to see how the Treasury can be expected to trust the rail industry, or the Department for Transport’s oversight of it. The industry has a dismal industrial relations record and has repeatedly failed to deliver. For example, the capacity benefits promised with the East Coast Main Line upgrades have still not been delivered and the service pattern introduced following completion of the Ordsall Chord in Manchester led to a timetable meltdown, only resolved by permanently degrading the service between Manchester Airport and the North East, the route it was supposed to improve. Great British Railways needs to deliver a consistent, high quality operation while reducing costs in real terms – only then will the industry be trusted. It’s an enormous challenge, although it was achieved by British Rail under Sir Robert Reid in the years before privatisation.
Overall, the Budget also barely nodded in the direction of carbon reduction, although the new, higher level of air passenger duty on private jets perhaps deserves an honourable mention. Buried in the Budget small print was a decision to increase regulated rail fares by 4.6%; yet fuel tax was held down yet again, even including the ‘temporary’ reduction introduced by the Conservatives. The Opposition have made sweeping accusations about the Budget but “war against the motorist” hasn’t been one of them.
Equally worrying was the lack of real action to support economic growth. There is as yet no real vision or strategy for the transport sector as a whole. Perhaps a compelling narrative will emerge over the next year – I very much hope so.
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An extraordinarily quixotic project has just taken a step forward. On 15 November, the Office of Rail and Road gave conditional approval to an access application from Go-op Co-operative Limited to operate open access services on two routes in the west country. This is small scale stuff: Go-op plan to use single car Class 153 units to run additional services between Taunton and Weston-super-Mare, and between Taunton, Westbury and Swindon, serving Frome and Melksham on the way.
Emotionally, it would be wonderful if this was a success and there are some aspects of current policy that work in its favour. Access charges will be based on marginal, incremental costs, so will be a peppercorn; it’s not a heavily congested part of the network and a single unit diesel train will incur very low infrastructure maintenance and renewals charges as the impact of its trains on the infrastructure will be minimal, similar to the two or three two-car trains each way which for years were the only trains on the Settle – Carlisle line.
That line had been maintained on a shoestring for years but rapidly fell to pieces and had to be completely renewed when it suddenly became a key route for heavy coal trains from Scotland to the Yorkshire generating stations. Railtrack’s then Commercial Director had agreed a marginal cost, go anywhere deal with the main freight operator (English Welsh and Scottish Railway) and summarily went when this particular chicken came home to roost.
Sadly, I find it hard to believe that there is any real prospect of making money operating single car trains to small towns such as Frome and Melksham, especially when Bristol – the dominant local centre – is not directly served. Even old, depreciated units like the Class 153s are not cheap to run and I would be amazed if the trains cover their direct operating costs. Certainly, when the initial regional franchises were let, almost all the services previously operated by British Rail were specified in full as the view was that it would otherwise be more profitable to decimate the service on most routes. ORR appears sceptical too, as the access rights are conditional on Go-op on meeting strict conditions relating to finance, funding £1.5m for level crossing enhancements and securing the necessary rolling stock.
Altogether, the proposal is reminiscent of the 1953 film comedy “The Titfield Thunderbolt”! But I would be delighted to be proved wrong.
Photo credit: Paul Bigland.
