UK - Return of the seven-day railway

[John Ashworth]

Return of the seven-day railway

With the bonuses of Network Rail executives at risk from the regulator, weekend rail closures may finally be a thing of the past

o Christian Wolmar
o guardian.co.uk,
o Friday August 29 2008 18:00 BST

Trying to travel by rail on bank holidays has become a lottery because of engineering closures and, at last, the rail regulator is finally losing patience with Network Rail over the issue. The regulator, who oversees Network Rail and determines how much money the supposedly private company should get, is seeking to reduce closures by a third over the next five years.

These blockades have always happened, but have become far more frequent recently as a result of several changes. First, it is cheaper to close a whole rail line for a long weekend than try to work every night during the few hours when there are no trains. Indeed, the heightened emphasis on safety, which is the second factor, also leads to reduced work time at night because extra time has to be allowed to close and reopen the line. There has, too, recently been an increase in work on the railway, especially on the west coast, where the upgrading has taken far more time than originally scheduled.

But actually, at root, the real reason for the increase has been the change in culture of the railways brought about by the split between engineering and operations created at privatisation. The old Windmill spirit of "the trains must get through", which was the ethos of the railways in both pre-nationalisation and British Rail days, has been lost in fog of contracts and ill thought-out compensation schemes. Under the old Big Four or British Rail, there was one organisation responsible for all aspects of the railway and there would be a trade off between the various departments such as engineering and operations to ensure that disruption was kept to a minimum.

Network Rail was born out of the ashes of Railtrack, which had deliberately given up on its engineering skills, and it has been intent on building them up again, ensuring the railway is safer and more reliable on a day to day basis. But the cost has been extra closures and a safety-first policy which means that at weekends and, especially, bank holidays people have been deserting the railways in droves. In July I wanted to go to Glasgow for a weekend but found that both the east and west coast lines were closed and gave up on the idea.

Now hopefully such blanket closures will be a thing of the past, or at least occur far less frequently if the pressure from the regulator is maintained. In Switzerland, major works, even to tunnels, get carried out on the "live" railway and in part it is simply a matter of better organisation and, above all, a willingness to assess risks properly. With more and more people using the railways because of higher fuel prices and greater environmental awareness, there needs to be a return to the seven day railway. Network Rail executives have, in the past, said that this is their ambition, too, but now, with their bonuses at risk from the regulator, it may become a reality.