What do we and the rail industry need for 2024 and beyond?

[whole diary]

[Bob_Blakey]

If you really do need a 7 day railway then as well as staffing it you are going to have to work out when/how you are going to do engineering works which will mean more use of diversionary routes which emans those routes (e.g. the line through a certain west Wiltshire town) will need improving. 

I completely understand that at times the railway has to be closed for engineering purposes. But I think the industry could do much better with respect to both the number and capacity of diversionary routes - redoubling of the sections between Bradford & Thingley Junctions and Yeovil Junction & Castle Cary are obvious examples; reopening of Okehampton<>Bere Alston would not only benefit local communities but provide an alternative when the South Devon route has to be closed (and not just by the engineers!). A greater willingness to use Single Line Working - rather than the much loved RRB^▸ (Rail Replacement Bus) (Rail Replacement Buses) - would also help to provide a usable, if somewhat reduced, service when maintenance gets in the way. Furthermore when the use of RRB is unavoidable make sure the service providers know what they are supposed to be doing - it wasn't that long ago that on an RRB journey between TAU^» (Taunton - next trains) & BPW^» (Bristol Parkway - next trains) I was using the driver got hopelessly lost in the Filton area of Bristol.   

[Gordon the Blue Engine]

Lack of Government funding is often used as an excuse for poor railway performance, but there are some things which the railway industry can and should be doing better which are down to the management eg
•   Better regulation and thus better punctuality
•   Better customer information, particularly when the service is disrupted.
•   Better incident management to get the service back more quickly.

I think there is a cultural issue to be addressed which encourages risk-averse management and discourages initiative.

[grahame]

From the I this morning - a longish quote from a very long article which I urge you to read

Britain’s rail crisis is getting worse with more than 1,000 train cancellations a day amid growing fears over crumbling infrastructure and ageing carriages, i can reveal.

Latest Office of Rail and Road data analysed by i shows in the 12 weeks between 12 November, 2023 and 3 February, 2024, an average of 1,062 trains a day were cancelled in England and Wales.

There has been a sharp increase in train cancellations in recent weeks, with the figures representing a 54 per cent rise on the rest of 2023/24 where 690 trains a day were cancelled between 1 April and 11 November last year.

The UK^▸ (United Kingdom)’s worst-performing rail operators have seen cancellations soar in recent weeks.  Meanwhile, ScotRail also saw an increase in cancellations from 56 a day between April and November to 67 a day between November and February.

Rail bosses have blamed a combination of stormy weather, strike action and lack of staff for the poor service during the winter months and admitted performance has not been “as good as it should be”.

Meanwhile, industry insiders have warned a backlog in track repairs is putting safety at risk and that staff fear a “major incident” on the railways in the next two years.

A drop-off in orders of new rolling stock also means passengers could still be riding outdated trains built in the 90s into the next decade, with experts estimating more than 2,000 trains – around one in six of the total across the country – could be 35 years old by 2030.

It comes as the industry continues to deal with spending constraints imposed by the Government after it received £16bn in subsidies when passenger numbers collapsed during the pandemic.

According to reports which have not been disputed by the Department for Transport, railway companies were told to cut costs by 10 per cent in 2022.

There was little mention of public transport investment in Chancellor Jeremy Hunt’s Budget on Wednesday and campaigners fear rail users are being driven away in the long-term by poor experience.

While rail fares went up by 4.9 per cent on Sunday, Mr Hunt announced fuel duty would be frozen for the fourteenth year in a row.

[eXPassenger]

and this:

Government plans to overhaul the country’s ailing railway system are significantly delayed while promised savings have yet to be achieved, according to a highly critical report by the government’s spending watchdog.

The National Audit Office (NAO) assessment of how ministers’ plans were progressing found the government had failed to meet any of the 12 “high level benefit” targets it set for rail in 2021.

It also revealed that the government had not delivered the £2.6bn savings it promised by 2024/25, instead forecasting that only three-quarters of the target would be achieved.
.......

was in the Guardian today
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2024/mar/08/government-failing-targets-to-fix-uk-railway-system-watchdog-reports