Rail companies have eyes bigger than their bellies
It’s a massive public trust issue. That was Peter Wilkinson talking about the railway’s decision to ditch its long-standing commitment to publish timetables and allow passengers to book trains 12…
May 2018’s timetable wrecks services
Rail has closed the north-south divide. Northern’s services since May 20’s timetable change have been decimated with cancellations and delays. Similar problems wrack Southern’s network.More accurately, the problems in Southern…
Chaos comes from changing plans
Order. Counter-order. Disorder. They might be the makings of military disasters but they apply firmly to railways in Northern England.Most of the disorder flows from governments changing their minds. Privatisation…
Railways cannot afford failure
We believed we could do it. Those words sum up the glorious failure of May’s timetable.They evoke a welcome spirit of trying but ultimately failing. But running a railway is…
Whitehall is pushing rail down the wrong track
Any pamphlet entitled How to be a minister is likely to have a limited audience. But that hasn’t stopped the Institute for Government with its latest primer on taking infrastructure…
Uncertainty beckons for rail franchises
Change is coming to rail franchises. Quite what is open to question.Until now, franchising has been relatively simple. The Department for Transport or Transport Scotland runs competitions for a group…
No easy answer to CrossCountry’s conundrum
Cross Country was the forgotten part of British Rail’s inter-city network. It didn’t concentrate on London and so found itself a low priority for investment.It hit privatisation 20 years ago…
SWR must reverse years of decline at Waterloo
Waterloo’s railway is generally reckoned to be Britain’s only profitable route. Income from passengers exceeds the costs of running trains and operating its tracks. Government benefits from the surplus.Those tracks…
Scotland pushes towards a better railway
Those who do nothing make no mistakes. So the saying goes and I was reminded of it while talking to a journalist from the Scotsman newspaper of the problems ScotRail…