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Friday, 29th August 2008

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Consumer ownership is best train of thought



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The time is right for rail travellers to flex their muscles, says Mark Lazarowicz.
THERE are now more people travelling by rail than at any time since 1946. Yet despite this apparent success, our rail services can sometimes fail to provide us with the service we have a right to expect.

I'm a regular traveller by rail to and fr
om London. Normally the service is good, but sometimes there can be serious delays or overcrowding – and journey times are still much longer than they ought to be.

There was progress in 2002 when the failing Railtrack was replaced by Network Rail. There have been reduced delays and improvements in safety.

The public still deserves better. That's why I've joined the "People's Rail" campaign to shake up the management structure of Network Rail and give real control to passengers and the public. Network Rail owns and runs the rail network, as well as being responsible for the UK's major train stations. It receives £240 a year in subsidy from every household in Britain.

Over last Christmas and the New Year we saw serious overruns on network shutdowns. In my view, Network Rail gave insufficient consideration to the plight of its passengers while the network shutdowns took place.

Passengers and the wider public are being failed by the way Network Rail is run. The company is accountable to a number of "public" members, but these are effectively board appointees. This means Network Rail is able to choose the people to whom it is accountable. Although thousands of people applied to become members, only 76 members of the public have been allowed to join up.

As an MP who has strong links with the co-operative movement, I am keenly aware of the benefits that consumer ownership can bring and I believe that turning the firm into a mutual company – "People's Rail" – would result in a company far more accountable to its customers.

This week Network Rail said it was looking at a review of routes across the UK. To get our rail services right we need the input of the people who are using them – the travelling public.

• Mark Lazarowicz is MP for Edinburgh North and Leith





The full article contains 373 words and appears in Edinburgh Evening News newspaper.
Page 1 of 1

 
1

Alan B,

10/07/2008 11:02:47
Lazarowicz really does not address the fundamental issue with rail in scotland. In fact beyond the scotland to london rail service he does not mention it.

The biggest problem with the structure of rail in scotland is it is not in control of the scottish parliament. The sp can fund rail track but not control its structure. That is daft. This leads to sp controling the train company and westminster controlling the track. This structure is completely untenable.

Rail should be a completely devolved issue and then it can become a party political issue within scotland to charter the course ahead based on scottish rail and transport needs. a structure for rail in scotland is not necessarily and in fact unlikely to be the same as the much more crowded south east of england.

One of the good things about the sp is that we can discuss specific rail projects. EARL, borders etc rather than the generalisations when it was run completely from westminster.

Part of the problem i have specifically with scotland is labour have choosen the wrong projects in scotland with earl and borders. The main targets should be:

1)increase capacity of trains and track to alievate overcrowding and allow more services. Also to prevent one failure knocking off the whole system.
2)link queen street and central
3)increase capacity of queen street and waverly
4)have a fast train between glas and ed not longer than 1/2hr. would like a based south service with 9stops running every 10mins stopping at only 3. meaning that every stop between the cities would run every 1/2hr. speed up the current north based glas-ed route to also under 1/2hr.

It is important that we have our towns within the central belt with good access to the main job centres.
5)speed up services. too many of the journey times are just too long. strling to edin or glas etc

As for scotland to london. Yes we should have a dedicated fast route to london not more that 3hrs and then on to the continent. That should have a
2

Alan B,

10/07/2008 11:04:24
cont..

That should have a different structure. A one size does not fit all. It is just a pity that it is taking so long to open the euro tunnel to competition as this will lead to more and better routes. Thankfully the eu is forcing this sometime in the future.
3

MartinT,

10/07/2008 14:02:27
You can find out more about the campaign at http://www.peoplesrail.org.uk
4

Ian down under,

Kawerau 10/07/2008 23:12:37
Some good thoughts and BR actually tried to improve infrastructure but was always thwarted by government and the Ministry of Transport.
During the 1980s there was a strict 2 for 3 rule which meant that govt only approved investment if the job could be done with 2/3 of the resources. For example if a service needed 300 carriages to operate it could only get new ones if they did it with 200. Did not actually allow for growth.
There were actually some incredibly competent people in BR but governments were the problem. They still are under the existing system.
Margaret Thatcher abused BR managers and told them they were a load of wasters who could not get a job in private industry. She then Appointed Sir Bob Reid from Shell to sort them out. Bob was surprised to find he was working with some of the most able and visionary people he had ever met. He was amazed at what they produced with so little resources being allowed. He recognised they worked with their hands tied and asked for more resources but even he was not listened to.
Also do not forget that the railways were strangled by government in W W 2 and went bankrupt running services they have never been paid for. Much of that backlog was never caught up and instead we ended up with our money going on motorways and car parks.
So if Mark's 'peoples railway' would allow decent funding and let p[eople with vison run it well it is worth a look.
Let's face it all that happens with franchising is regular repainting and rebranding.
5

truthsleuth,

11/07/2008 01:05:09
The nation has wasted 4 decades throwing money at a massive road network that has starved the railways of sensible investment.
What is wanted is a strategy that provides for speedy improvements to capacity and performane and price.

1. High speed lines connecting major population centres
2. Electrification of most urban lines
3. Opening of new lines to serve population centres not currently served

The current structure is simply wasteful and must be modified in ways that remove the multiplicity of finacial and managerial interfaces.
The best way to do this would be to return to the BR system which just before the Mad Major piratised it was beginning to get its act together. With the funds the private companies have had thrown at them we could already have most of the points 1 to 3 outlined above.

6

,

11/07/2008 04:45:52
Comment Removed By Administrator
Reason:
7

Ian down under,

Kawerau 11/07/2008 22:08:53
#5 Couldn't put it better. It is amazing how simple some solutions are but we run around like headless chickens wih congestion charges, hybrid cars, carbon credits wind farms and the like.
If we'd invested in decent public transport we would not be in this mess.
Henry Ford was quoted as saying that the car would be the greatest thing ever for mankind and then it would turn on mankind and kill it off. Wise man.

 

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