Can't we rise to challenge of getting railways right?
IS IT so hard to get the railways right?
Britain pioneered rail transport in the 19th century – nowadays the headlines are about overcrowding, high ticket prices, delays, and mistakes over franchises.
The latest franchise shenanigans have seen the process to choose a firm to run services on the West Coast Main Line collapse in disarray.
The finger has been pointed at blundering officials in the Department for Transport.
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Derby's Richard Brown, chief executive of Eurostar, was asked to look into what went wrong.
He has concluded the franchising system has generally been a success for the railways, but that mandarins at the Department for Transport need to strengthen "franchising capability".
Some would ask if the system is so good, why do so many rail travellers have grim tales of unpleasant journeys?
The railways are still using their 19th century infrastructure, experts point out. It would be too expensive and difficult to update this, Network Rail has concluded.
The answer is seen by ministers as High Speed Rail, which will plough huge swathes of development through England's green and pleasant land.
Hasn't the country still got the expertise to modernise our railways without starting from expensive scratch?
It would be a challenge – but rail challenges were once met with gusto and determination in Britain...
Comments
by Oldpiggies
Friday, January 11 2013, 3:02PM
“from John Stewart, Hilton, Derby.
What a miserable, defeatist and contradictory editorial! The franchising system, on which Richard Brown has reported, has nothing to do with railway infrastructure and how we seek to improve it, and its publication hardly justifies an editorial which conflates such different matters. You say that ministers' answer is highspeed rail: "which will plough huge swathes of development through England's green and pleasant land".
You then say that: "Hasn't the country still got the expertise to modernise our railways without starting from expensive scratch?" "It would be a challenge – but rail challenges were once met with gusto and determination in Britain...". Indeed they were.... in the 19th century by building a great network across England's green and pleasant land! Has the writer learned nothing from the West Coast Main Line modernisation which surely showed that attempting wholesale reconstruction of an operating railway was just about the most expensive and disruptive way of updating the infrastructure?
The only cost-effective way to modernise a railway is to close it for two or three years and that is politically, socially and commercially impossible. At the end of the process one would still not have a railway the equal of what can be achieved by new build. Also, the capacity needed could only be achieved by substantial widening involving property acquisition alongside our existing lines, a vastly more disruptive and intrusive process than building a new line through largely open land.
It is true that HS2 will cut a swathe across the country, but there are amazingly few buildings affected for a project of this size; the designers have done a masterpiece of avoidance. We need vision to provide a primary national network for the next century - and we will not get it by spending weekends putting passengers on buses whilst reconfiguring current alignments.
Your comments were astounding for a newspaper serving the heart of Britain's railway industry .”