Welcome to Barney Wyld who has joined Network Rail as communications director, replacing former No 10 man Tom Kelly.
He faces some challenges in debunking old railway myths, not least that of fares always rising and improvements never appearing. For there are more improvements being delivered today than at any time for many years. Perhaps there are too many for NR’s legion of communications managers to communicate?
RAIL’s office certainly has a recurring discussion of the difficulty in extracting information from the company. It’s hard to believe the company does not know what work’s coming up, or when a certain project might be completed, but that’s often the impression it creates.
The money being spent today on rail is a good news story. At a time when there are many competing demands for funding, the railway owes it to itself and to others to properly explain where its chunk of taxpayers’ cash is going.