It could take until the end of the decade to bring train punctuality back to pre-Hatfield crash levels, according to the company which runs the UK's railways.Network Rail's new 10 year business plan, published on Monday, also says it may have to cut up to 2,000 jobs to help it make savings of £12.9bn over the period.
Unions have reacted angrily to the strategy, describing the proposed job cuts as "obscene" and threatening possible industrial action.
In the plan the company says it wants to reduce the number of late-running trains to one in 10 by 2009, rather than the current 20%.
It is looking at cost saving measures to meet government targets on improved punctuality, including cutting its 14,000-strong workforce over the next three years.
The chairman of Network Rail, Ian McAllister, told BBC Radio 4's Today programme: "That will come out of admin staff, contracting staff and so on."
If I understand Patrick's attitude to our railways, the secret is getting everything to work properly. (I went looking for an archive piece that says this, but failed. Maybe Patrick can supply a link to such a piece.)
(ADDENDUM July 1st: Yes, in a comment on this Patrick supplies this link.)
If that's right, I wonder how I'd feel if I was one of the "… and so on" people. What do you do? I work for the railways. Oh, doing what? I'm in the And So On Department. Oh. Bad luck mate.
Not that I have much of an idea of what to do about all this.
But for what it may be worth here is my plan:
1. Put the whole British railway system into one big single organisation, trains, tracks and all.
2. Probably better to re-introduce privatisation, but by selling shares in the whole thing, BT style.
3. Run the "whole thing" along military/service lines, rather than "commercial" lines. Have uniforms that everyone wears, up to and including the very top management, and that everyone eventually gets to be proud of. Award medals. Don't pay especially well. Encourage self-sacrificial attitudes for the greater good of the system and of the "passengers" (NOT "customers"). Have a commander of it all who is a famous person (Ian McAllister – who he?) and who travels relentlessly and workaholically (and eats, and sleeps) on his trains, in uniform, shaking hands with everyone (railway people and passengers - and especially with all the And So Ons) and eyeballing them (I'm thinking Monty taking over the Eighth Army in 1942, just before Alamein), and who keeps mostly only electrical contact with his permanent headquarters staff. (This is the "W" formation approach, although if you don't get what W has to do with anything, don't worry, it's not that vital.)
And did I mention that it would help if "Monty" knew what he was doing and wasn't an ignorant prat? That's the snag. What if instead of Monty you got one of his baffled predecessors?
So, no, I don't really know what the hell to do.
But the good news is, Patrick has a category called "Rail General". How apposite.
Comments
>Run the "whole thing" along military/service lines
A lot of railways in Japan do appear to be run on lines quite like this. (Japanese railways belong to a great many organisations rather than just one, however, mainly because the companies that built the railways still generally run them. It is like Britain circa 1900). I am not sure that you could successfully translate this sort of ethos to Britain at this point in history, though.
Posted by Michael Jennings on June 30, 2003What you're proposing is very much like the way the railways used to be run, especially in the early days of the industry. And it worked then.
Do you have a candidate for the post of General?
Posted by Tim Hall on June 30, 2003Michael:
I think you could make this kind of thing work in Britain now. The point is, this is the logical way to run a railway, as one great big team effort. But, as with all armies, the transformation must start at the top.
which brings me to Tim:
Who could do this? I have NO IDEA. Sorry.
But an anecdote about Branson seems relevant. For my money Branson is too much of a cunning bastard to be ideal, but he does do the handshaking and eyeballing bit. I once had a lift (from a TV show in Birmingham back to London in the small hours, I think it was) from a driver who used to be Branson's driver, and we had time to talk. He said that Branson would organise an annual party for all his employees, and he used to spend twelve solid hours doing nothing but shaking hands with all his employees and their families, and smiling for their cameras.
That explains a bit of why Branson is richer than us, I think.
Trouble with Branson is that he, together with one of the best-regarded managers from the old nationalised British Rail (Chris Green) managed to give us the fiasco called "Operation Princess".
I don't know if OP went pear-shaped because Branson's and Green's operational skills aren't as good as their marketing or vision, or whether it the fragmented nature of the network that made their job impossible. Quite likely a mixture of both.
Posted by Tim Hall on July 1, 2003Permalink
That link to the bit where I say it's all about getting the little things right is here:
http://www.transportblog.com/archives/000360.html
And guess what? It's an article all about Connex.
Posted by Patrick Crozier on June 30, 2003