Railway Performance Debate 11 Nov

[LNW-GW Joint]

There was a debate in the Commons yesterday on railway performance, kicked off by a statement by SoS Louise Haigh.
It was the ideal opportunity for her to tell us how GBR will be organised and what its business model would be.
Instead she reeled off some improved performance statistics for the DOHL (pubic sector) contracts (punctuality, cancellations) and put off any detail on GBR to the future.
TOC performance data will be posted at stations (didn't this used to happen in the franchise era?).
She said the return of private TOCs to the public sector would start as soon as the Passenger Services Bill had royal assent, when a timescale would be published.
She also said DOHL/OLR would be renamed "soon" as the public sector operator.

For once there was no bashing of delinquent TOCs like Avanti.
She said Southeastern would be running 44 (?) extra services from December, and that XC had resumed its full timetable "today" (but it definitely isn't the 2019 timetable).
LNER was praised for reducing its cancellations to "zero".
Several times she said working practices must be improved and exampled better driver training as a current engagement with the unions.
No detail on what other working practices needed to be changed.
Louise did finish by saying (with some relish) she was going to abolish Network Rail.
The changes at Euston were mentioned (as in she was able to "move fast and fix things").
HS2 was hardly mentioned.

After this largely non-statement, the Commons went into its usual local lobbying by MPs for their pet services, usually involving more stops to slow down services and extend journey times.
You can follow the debate on BBC iPlayer: https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m00253w7/house-of-commons-rail-performance-statement

We are obviously going to have to wait a while before any more detail on GBR and its workings are announced.

 

[yorksrob]

Local MP's calling for improvements to their local train services ?

Heaven forfend !

 

[GRALISTAIR]

It will be well into next year before we hear anything meaningful from the House of Commons on railways.

 

[185]

Have to mostly agree with the above, that all the usual faces turned up to complain about their own local train on their little rural branch line, with few addressing the network-wide performance issues, pinchpoints and strategies for Network Rail to tackle the biggest delay-minute causers.

Some nonsense from the newly appointed shadow minister about performance falling on the Transpennine north route - figures I believe fell partly due to engineering works. Many Tories & Lib Dems went further in criticising 'outdated working practices' ...Aslef et al want Sunday in the working week, thus it seems the Commons is not immune to the misinformation coming from the Daily Mail & Shapps, totally missing the point that this requires 18% more staff and the status quo is more business efficient.

Good to see one SNP member raising the non-performance issue of leasing costs, however seems that will not be challenged by this government. (well, yet.)

 

[AF91]

Local MP's calling for improvements to their local train services ?

Heaven forfend !

It's rather aggravating when they don't give any consideration to how changes would affect the service as a whole or disregard the advice from planners who do have an overview of the service as a whole.

 

[Falcon1200]

Louise did finish by saying (with some relish) she was going to abolish Network Rail.

Which makes one wonder, who does she think will maintain the railway, or signal trains, among other things, in future?

 

[LNW-GW Joint]

Which makes one wonder, who does she think will maintain the railway, or signal trains, among other things, in future?

I think this is a PR matter really.
Combining TOCs and NR ("re-integrating track and train") means she can have a clean sheet going forward.
What happens on the ground might well stay the same, though I think the way NR does business and is regulated may well change.
TOC, NR and DfT managers will be vying for the top jobs in GBR.

 

[twpsaesneg]

Which makes one wonder, who does she think will maintain the railway, or signal trains, among other things, in future?

I suspect it's all smoke and mirrors, I expect to see exactly the same people and organisation, but rebranded to be one arm of GBR with another layer of management added at the top. Maybe I am overly cynical.

 

[YorkshireBear]

Which makes one wonder, who does she think will maintain the railway, or signal trains, among other things, in future?

She's made it clear before that she believes Network Rail engineers hold the industry to Ransome with their requirements and were named alongside shareholders and private companies as one the three things the railway should not answer to.

I wrote to my MP about her disgraceful divisive language and alas received no reply.

 

[Horizon22]

Which makes one wonder, who does she think will maintain the railway, or signal trains, among other things, in future?

It will just be one larger organisation with either a vertical approach (e.g. an “Infrastructure” division of GBR) or route-based (e.g. “GBR Eastern: Infrastructure”).

In reality, most of the maintenance will remain broadly the same.

 

[GRALISTAIR]

It will just be one larger organisation with either a vertical approach (e.g. an “Infrastructure” division of GBR) or route-based (e.g. “GBR Eastern: Infrastructure”).

In reality, most of the maintenance will remain broadly the same.

I think that too. Surely nobody is going to want change for change sake?

 

[NickBucks]

The local MP raised the subject of the fiasco in Oxford Botley Road and all the SoS did was to repeat Network Rails Statement about how complicated it was and how NR were working as fast as possible which somewhat contradicts her views on Network Rail and it's imminent demise.

 

[DJ_K666]

The local MP raised the subject of the fiasco in Oxford Botley Road and all the SoS did was to repeat Network Rails Statement about how complicated it was and how NR were working as fast as possible which somewhat contradicts her views on Network Rail and it's imminent demise.

Go Slow And Break Things was what she said ought to be NR's motto.

 

[Kipperthecat]

Plenty of debate about Public v Private, as you would expect, but it compares apples & oranges.

 

[Horizon22]

Plenty of debate about Public v Private, as you would expect, but it compares apples & oranges.

And of course a good deal of the "railway" is already 'nationalised' although I'm sure several MPs would like to make a political point even if it's not based in reality.

 

[JonathanH]

And of course a good deal of the "railway" is already 'nationalised' although I'm sure several MPs would like to make a political point even if it's not based in reality.

MPs will be able to claim that issues are a legacy of the period of privatisation and that it take time to put things right for a good long while after nationalisation.

 

[Horizon22]

MPs will be able to claim that issues are a legacy of the period of privatisation and that it take time to put things right for a good long while after nationalisation.

Of course. But I think maybe 90% of the things passengers care about won't change that much, even with full blown nationalisation. It will take longer than a term of government, for sure.

Using Network Rail - as an example - this has been nationalised (and infrastructure pretty much always has been with the exception of the short Railtrack period) for over 20 years.

 

[Wyrleybart]

Many Tories & Lib Dems went further in criticising 'outdated working practices' ...Aslef et al want Sunday in the working week, thus it seems the Commons is not immune to the misinformation coming from the Daily Mail & Shapps, totally missing the point that this requires 18% more staff and the status quo is more business efficient.

Which suggests the Shapps (Williams) report never really achieved anything meaningful !!! Funny that

 

[Djgr]

I think that too. Surely nobody is going to want change for change sake?

Surely nobody is saying that the restructuring of the railway industry is change for change sake?

 

[LNW-GW Joint]

Of course. But I think maybe 90% of the things passengers care about won't change that much, even with full blown nationalisation. It will take longer than a term of government, for sure.
Using Network Rail - as an example - this has been nationalised (and infrastructure pretty much always has been with the exception of the short Railtrack period) for over 20 years.

But they were able to borrow money on the open market until DfT cut up their credit card up in 2014.
Quite a lot of projects were delivered under the "regulated asset base" regime (WCRM, Evergreen, Thameslink 2000 etc).
.

 

[GRALISTAIR]

Surely nobody is saying that the restructuring of the railway industry is change for change sake?

Indeed not but that is not what I was referring to.

 

[Adrian1980uk]

Under the current constraints, financial and political, I actually the railways do a reasonable job, the challenge is when things go wrong they're not good at handling it and things go very wrong

 

[jayah]

Which suggests the Shapps (Williams) report never really achieved anything meaningful !!! Funny that

It joins McNulty in the dusty filing cabinet.

Shadow GBR has shades of the Shadow SRA. The SRA didn't achieve much, let alone the shadow version of it.

The bar is so low you'd only trip over it on purpose.

 

[LNW-GW Joint]

The SRA did get control of the WCRM project, and did some constructive remapping of the then franchise boundaries.
It was abolished by Labour, or rather taken in-house by the DfT, because it was part of the arms-length regime which forced money out of the Treasury to fund Network Rail.
GBR, shadow or otherwise, will have the same problem with government.

 

[Harpo]

GBR, shadow or otherwise, will have the same problem with government.

GBR needs a similar system to NR’s control periods. An agreed level of funding for agreed outputs, over a set period of time.