Paul Salveson is cautiously optimistic on rail initiatives
After a rather pessimistic view of Labour’s transport offering in the last Chartist, I have to say, a few weeks into the new government, that there’s grounds for cautious optimism. The Secretary of State for Transport, Louise Haigh, has got off to a good start with a determination to make a difference. The appointment of former Network Rail chair, Lord (Peter) Hendy, was an inspired choice of Starmer’s. Getting someone in the top rail job who is highly respected and knows the industry back to front, is very good news.
In the last issue I said that a quick win for Labour would be to sort out the long-running dispute with Aslef over pay. Fingers crossed, there’s a deal on the table which the union leadership is recommending to its members. It won’t solve all the industry’s HR woes but will make a massive difference. Rightly, the pay deal is “without strings”. There are however some big issues around workplace practices that have to change – top of the list should be bringing Sundays into the normal working week. In the post-Covid era, leisure travel has grown significantly and lots of people want to travel at weekends. It’s bizarre that Sunday working for train crew remains voluntary on most networks.
There are other thorny issues which need to be addressed, in a grown-up way. The doomed attempt by the Tories to close hundreds of station booking offices provoked a great win for effective campaigning, both by the unions and passengers. But what now? Several commentators made good arguments to re-invent smaller station booking offices as local hubs with a mix of ticket sales and travel information with retail services – the local station becomes a village shop. These ideas need to be revisited without the threat of closure hanging over them.
Another issue is the quaintly termed “manning” agreement – every train, on most routes, must have a guard along with a driver. That’s good for passengers and good for revenue. However, on many lines trains are being “cancelled” because of lack of a guard but actually run, without picking up passengers, to get back to depot. This is highly frustrating when you’re stuck, as I was recently, with a two hour wait for a train because the previous two are shown as “cancelled” but actually sail through the station empty. There needs to be a way of ensuring that in exceptional circumstances (e.g. staff sickness) trains can run as advertised “driver only” without encouraging train operators to cut staffing levels.
On a more strategic level, Labour is pressing ahead with the creation of “Great British Railways” which is welcome. However, the devil will be in the detail and what isn’t desirable is the re-creation of a highly centralised structure which stifles local or regional initiative. Starmer has shown himself willing to give the existing – and new – combined authorities greater powers over services such as public transport. Greater Manchester, which already has control of the bus network, is looking to take control of some local rail routes. Liverpool City Region has been responsible for the Merseyrail electric network for many years and wants to expand its reach to some of the non-electrified routes operated by Northern. West Midlands has similar aspirations for its own network.
That’s all good; the combined authorities bring local accountability and knowledge but are big enough to benefit from a “network effect”. That doesn’t mean they should be responsible for everything: infrastructure is probably best left to Network Rail/GBR. But the operator (private or public) should be responsible to the combined authority, with local stations coming under their wing. It’s worth trying out a few pilot schemes, learning from the experience of some of the light rail operations such as South Yorkshire Supertram, which now come under combined authority control.
It doesn’t have to be just the urban networks. I’ve long argued for a more subtle approach to rural branch lines, looking at examples such as Switzerland where many lines are local authority owned and operated. If the combined authority model applied to an area such as Cumbria or the south-west, local railways could be integrated with bus networks, finally getting something like an integrated local transport network which feeds into the national rail network.
And finally…living in Bolton I was saddened, but not shocked, by the recent riots, stupidly termed by the BBC as “protests against immigration”. Let’s be clear, these were racist attacks on vulnerable people and communities. The police and courts were right to take a tough line and it was heartening to see a strong response from many communities in support of people and buildings that were attacked.
So far, so uncontroversial. However, I think the sentencing in some cases may do more harm than good. Locking up an elderly woman, probably with mental health problems, for posting admittedly highly unpleasant messages on Facebook might not be a good use of the prison system. A stern telling off with a fine and community service might have been a better solution. For now, towns like Bolton, Rotherham, Sunderland and elsewhere need to unite and champion what’s good about their communities.