Railways lurching out of control?

[zwk500]

It turns out it isn't, as the alternative is apparently to simply cancel the train!

Isn't the cancellation because of the reliance on Rest day working? The alternative would be to hire more staff to cover the roster without RDW.

 

[LOL The Irony]

Just an observation - I travelled on the peak am and pm today on Thameslink to Farringdon and on the Elizabeth line to and from Paddington. Both very , very busy with a mix of commuters and airport etc travellers.

The local trains in urban West Wales up the Valleys (off peak) were deserted - 2 trains had no fare paying passengers , and were in effect empty stock. 4 of the others had less than 20 passengers on a 3 car service ........

The main line service from Paddington to South Wales managed with no problem as a 5 car vice 9 or 10.

I hate to say it , but from today's experiences - the railway is carrying a lot of fresh air , outside the 2 (dare I say it) - London and South East service rail groups.

All of the trains I've been on recently were relatively busy. I don't think you can use just 2 observations to generalise every service across the country. You should be looking at the passenger figures for each line.
(for clarity, 3 services were to Manchester, 1 to Stoke and 1 to Chester)

 

[Sly Old Fox]

This is wishful thinking from another poster who clearly loathes staff. Fairly safe to say that isn’t remotely likely when it was kept open throughout the pandemic and we’re now carrying huge numbers of passengers again.

No loathing here. Just looking at the evidence so far.

I’m not saying the government are about to shut the railway. Just that it is more likely than funding a payrise for staff.

 

[Swaine]

I’m going to try to ignore all of the other stuff about benefits/ Covid/ Pensioners/ tax rates/ Unions/ furlough etc, because it’s not as if we don’t have enough threads about those

Instead, my simple question is “What did you think would happen when the railway was nationalised under the current government?”

I’ve tried to explain over the past decade on various discussions that “nationalisation” wouldn’t be going back to the halcyon days of British Rail…

…it wouldn’t see the Government hand over billions of pounds to “A Proper Railway Man” and let them get on with long term strategies without any scrutiny…

…It would mean that the railway ended up being treated like various other “public services” have been over the past dozen years of austerity

People must have looked at the struggling schools, the hospital waiting lists, the Armed Forces procurement, the regular strikes because of cuts in areas like Fire Fighting, the hundreds of closed libraries/ sure starts etc and thought “but despite vital public services being treated like this, I totally trust the current Conservative government to successfully manage the railway and leave all the long term decisions to Proper Railwaymen”

Well, guess what’s happened? The days where franchise commitments were guaranteed/ service levels were honoured/ timetables later the intended six months etc… those days are long gone. Instead we have the government who answer to nobody, who’s going to fine them?

So you get the situation like Brigg, where the token Saturday service was too much effort to run, so instead they’ve spent months running trains in the regular parts (for “driver training” etc) but not accessible to the public! Other “Provincial” lines are effectively abandoned for several months at a time and many journeys around the UK can be cancelled as late as 21:59 the night before, with no penalty. Can you imagine if Arriva or Serco had tried to get away with this?

But at least there likes of Arriva had to play by rules. You might not like the terms of the “no growth” Wales & Borders contract that the government agreed with them but they had to maintain their side of the deal and run the requisite number of trains each day. If they hadn’t then there’d have been financial penalties.

Who holds the Operator Of Last Resort to account though? You could complain to your MP about the Arriva arrangement but there’s no accountability any more.

Midlife trains are scrapped (or sit idle in sidings for many months with no future use), fleet sizes are shrunk, there’s clearly no government appetite to solve the staffing issues in England, in fact the railway seems to be making such big losses that prolonged industrial action has the twin benefits of “saving” some money whilst also being a handy political weapon to give the impression that Starmer is either “against hard working commuters” or “has lost touch with the working class”.

It might therefore last until the next election. However unhappy you were about a “zero growth” contract, you know that there was light at the end of the tunnel, that the terms weren’t forever, that new terms would be agreed with the winner of the next contract to give you something to look forward to

Who will force the government to improve anything though? At least in the past there were franchise commitments where the likes of Stagecoach might take the government in court if they reneged on a deal (just like the government could take Stagecoach to court).

No system is perfect, but the one that we had until 2019 seemed okay:

We had five year Network Rail control periods that set out the infrastructure improvements that we could expect, and franchises of roughly “seven” years duration creating a stable environment for firms to make improvements and see some return (with incentives for long term behaviour and the government free to set demanding baseline timetables if they so wished)… that felt like a reasonable mix - TOCs had an incentive to keep trains running (which is why they tended to generally prefer ‘above inflation’ pay rises to prolonged strike periods that would mean no farebox income), the government could move the “goalposts” at each new franchise (e.g. insist on improving certain frequencies or introducing late evening/ Sunday services), most fare rises were agreed months in advance and were annual (Obviously there was flexibility over discounted tickets that weren’t subject to the same protection/ restrictions)…

Enthusiasts will complain about “bus companies” and the apparent waste of money caused by repainting station signs/ replacing staff uniforms every seven years, but it seemed to work for most people - the basket case lines that would have been next on BR’s closure list survived because they were part of the franchise terms, timetables generally only changed twice a year (other than unavoidable issues like engineering works), most fares only went up in January (again, unlike BR), so you could be pretty certain about the level of service you’d expect

Now though, I’d have to check a website after ten o’clock at night to know whether the Operator Of Last Resort intend to at least try to run the train i intend to board tomorrow (no guarantee it’ll actually run, but at least I know whether they even plan to try…). I can’t be certain about a night away because I’d have to go through the same late night online check to see if my train the following day was loaded onto the timetable

We have an unaccountable mess that’s turning people away, we have no guarantees of improvement, we seem powerless to appeal

This is what Nationalisation means though; a railway run as well/ badly as the government of the day treats other public services.

Please don’t waste time telling me about how perfect things would be if you’d been free to nationalise it your way (giving you free reign on how to spend those blank cheques with no pesky oversight from politicians), because a nationalised railway was always going to be as messy as the way that schools/ hospitals/ prisons etc have

In conclusion, I agree that the railway has lurched out of control. The reasons for this are entirely the fault of the Government. But now that the Government have this unaccountable control, why are they going to give up these fun new powers? They jealously guard them, and the private companies will get paid to keep quiet - but this is Nationalisation - this is what people thought that they wanted (and, I suspect, in certain cases, are too proud to admit that it’s not working)

Absolutely spot on. Always useful to set out the bigger picture!

 

[Bletchleyite]

No loathing here. Just looking at the evidence so far.

I’m not saying the government are about to shut the railway. Just that it is more likely than funding a payrise for staff.

I think that's hyperbole. They'll settle eventually, probably for something similar to the 5% accepted in Wales, or Scotland (forget which).

 

[43066]

Isn't the cancellation because of the reliance on Rest day working? The alternative would be to hire more staff to cover the roster without RDW.

Yes indeed. To remove reliance on RDW without increasing staff numbers would effectively decimate the service to the point where it becomes unusable, as we have seen over the summer at various TOCs.

No loathing here. Just looking at the evidence so far.

I’m not saying the government are about to shut the railway. Just that it is more likely than funding a payrise for staff.

An offer was previously close to being tabled, as was leaked to the telegraph, however the sticking point appears to be the strings attached and final sign off from the Treasury.

Instead, my simple question is “What did you think would happen when the railway was nationalised under the current government?”

I do completely agree with this!

I think that's hyperbole. They'll settle eventually, probably for something similar to the 5% accepted in Wales, or Scotland (forget which).

I think you’re right. It’s just disappointing that there doesn’t seem to be much urgency on behalf of the government to get to this point before the next round of strike action.

 

[Nicholas Lewis]

I wish I shared your confidence, when we read that routine maintenance is already being scaled back.

Whilst i left the industry a couple years ago ive worked in it since 1980 on the engineering side and standards are significantly tighter than they were in BR days and one thing i know very well, as i was on a pilot project, was to get standards relaxed by adopting a more risk based approach we didn't get very far with convincing safety panels let alone moving to consultation. Even where we did have limited success reality was it scratched at the surface and never resulted in meaningful reduction in posts. So its very difficult to lower maintenance standards and the engineers i knew would readily apply a speed or disconnect signalling equipment than leave a residual risk.

 

[Peter Sarf]

I think the governments argument is that there can be a pay rise but it needs to be self-funded with no extra government support, which seems reasonable with revenue well down. However, some people seem to want to have their cake and eat it...

This is my view too. The railways have to be more efficient.

Yet most train drivers pay tax at the higher rate so, with employee NICs on top, a good 50% of any increase will go straight back to the government in tax anyway.

So if most of their pay rise goes back to the government why bother striking for said pay rise ?.

The credit card stuff is something you won't be able to for long as you'll get defaults and/or CCJs and you won't be able to take out anymore. You'd also have to lie about your income/expenditure which is fraudulent. As for shoplifting you'd hope at some point a criminal conviction would come along.

I'd suggest this sort of behaviour is an edge case, essentially this is a criminal and I hope we're not implying a majority benefit claimants are criminals. I've read that a majority of benefit claimants are now in work.

There do seem to be ways of side stepping a lot of the debt if you want to be "resurceful".

Biggest problem is many / vast majority of people do not like giving up responsibility and control. The DfT / Treasury effectively control the railway and don't want to relinquish control but at the same time are not capable of running the railway. Some painful decisions need to be made and soon. I fear for the railways.

An example of being selfish. Rather a lot of it around.

I’m going to try to ignore all of the other stuff about benefits/ Covid/ Pensioners/ tax rates/ Unions/ furlough etc, because it’s not as if we don’t have enough threads about those

Instead, my simple question is “What did you think would happen when the railway was nationalised under the current government?”

I’ve tried to explain over the past decade on various discussions that “nationalisation” wouldn’t be going back to the halcyon days of British Rail…

…it wouldn’t see the Government hand over billions of pounds to “A Proper Railway Man” and let them get on with long term strategies without any scrutiny…

…It would mean that the railway ended up being treated like various other “public services” have been over the past dozen years of austerity

People must have looked at the struggling schools, the hospital waiting lists, the Armed Forces procurement, the regular strikes because of cuts in areas like Fire Fighting, the hundreds of closed libraries/ sure starts etc and thought “but despite vital public services being treated like this, I totally trust the current Conservative government to successfully manage the railway and leave all the long term decisions to Proper Railwaymen”

Well, guess what’s happened? The days where franchise commitments were guaranteed/ service levels were honoured/ timetables later the intended six months etc… those days are long gone. Instead we have the government who answer to nobody, who’s going to fine them?

So you get the situation like Brigg, where the token Saturday service was too much effort to run, so instead they’ve spent months running trains in the regular parts (for “driver training” etc) but not accessible to the public! Other “Provincial” lines are effectively abandoned for several months at a time and many journeys around the UK can be cancelled as late as 21:59 the night before, with no penalty. Can you imagine if Arriva or Serco had tried to get away with this?

But at least there likes of Arriva had to play by rules. You might not like the terms of the “no growth” Wales & Borders contract that the government agreed with them but they had to maintain their side of the deal and run the requisite number of trains each day. If they hadn’t then there’d have been financial penalties.

Who holds the Operator Of Last Resort to account though? You could complain to your MP about the Arriva arrangement but there’s no accountability any more.

Midlife trains are scrapped (or sit idle in sidings for many months with no future use), fleet sizes are shrunk, there’s clearly no government appetite to solve the staffing issues in England, in fact the railway seems to be making such big losses that prolonged industrial action has the twin benefits of “saving” some money whilst also being a handy political weapon to give the impression that Starmer is either “against hard working commuters” or “has lost touch with the working class”.

It might therefore last until the next election. However unhappy you were about a “zero growth” contract, you know that there was light at the end of the tunnel, that the terms weren’t forever, that new terms would be agreed with the winner of the next contract to give you something to look forward to

Who will force the government to improve anything though? At least in the past there were franchise commitments where the likes of Stagecoach might take the government in court if they reneged on a deal (just like the government could take Stagecoach to court).

No system is perfect, but the one that we had until 2019 seemed okay:

We had five year Network Rail control periods that set out the infrastructure improvements that we could expect, and franchises of roughly “seven” years duration creating a stable environment for firms to make improvements and see some return (with incentives for long term behaviour and the government free to set demanding baseline timetables if they so wished)… that felt like a reasonable mix - TOCs had an incentive to keep trains running (which is why they tended to generally prefer ‘above inflation’ pay rises to prolonged strike periods that would mean no farebox income), the government could move the “goalposts” at each new franchise (e.g. insist on improving certain frequencies or introducing late evening/ Sunday services), most fare rises were agreed months in advance and were annual (Obviously there was flexibility over discounted tickets that weren’t subject to the same protection/ restrictions)…

Enthusiasts will complain about “bus companies” and the apparent waste of money caused by repainting station signs/ replacing staff uniforms every seven years, but it seemed to work for most people - the basket case lines that would have been next on BR’s closure list survived because they were part of the franchise terms, timetables generally only changed twice a year (other than unavoidable issues like engineering works), most fares only went up in January (again, unlike BR), so you could be pretty certain about the level of service you’d expect

Now though, I’d have to check a website after ten o’clock at night to know whether the Operator Of Last Resort intend to at least try to run the train i intend to board tomorrow (no guarantee it’ll actually run, but at least I know whether they even plan to try…). I can’t be certain about a night away because I’d have to go through the same late night online check to see if my train the following day was loaded onto the timetable

We have an unaccountable mess that’s turning people away, we have no guarantees of improvement, we seem powerless to appeal

This is what Nationalisation means though; a railway run as well/ badly as the government of the day treats other public services.

Please don’t waste time telling me about how perfect things would be if you’d been free to nationalise it your way (giving you free reign on how to spend those blank cheques with no pesky oversight from politicians), because a nationalised railway was always going to be as messy as the way that schools/ hospitals/ prisons etc have

In conclusion, I agree that the railway has lurched out of control. The reasons for this are entirely the fault of the Government. But now that the Government have this unaccountable control, why are they going to give up these fun new powers? They jealously guard them, and the private companies will get paid to keep quiet - but this is Nationalisation - this is what people thought that they wanted (and, I suspect, in certain cases, are too proud to admit that it’s not working)

Good points.

I can't see anything closing, or if it does it'll be real round-the-edges pruning like Girvan-Stranraer (though ScotGov would probably fund its retention), or pointless, low frequency duplicated stuff in London like the Greenford branch.

The idea that we'll see mass closures of things like Manchester commuter lines is just fanciful; the uproar would be massive. Note the furore a certain Northern scenic line generated when that was threatened, or the Fort Bill sleeper, let alone anything that actually serves much of a purpose. We're in different times - the 1980s were the time of the car. We're more likely to see service cuts - pruning of early/late journeys and frequencies above hourly dropped to hourly - as unlike closures only the actual users notice these.

I think we are going to see a slow decline. If something major needs replacing or repairing on a marginal route then the route will get closed. For example if Ribblehead Viaduct needed major repairs again it would just get abandoned.

 

[Bletchleyite]

I think we are going to see a slow decline. If something major needs replacing or repairing on a marginal route then the route will get closed. For example if Ribblehead Viaduct needed major repairs again it would just get abandoned.

They failed to do this in the 1980s when the car was the future. They'd never get away with it now.

As I said maybe Girvan-Stranraer or a similarly obscure line (Barton-upon-Humber must surely be England's biggest basket case line now?) but not the S&C. And probably not anything in Scotland or Wales as the political situation is very, very different.

 

[matt_world2004]

As an aside and trying not to be snarky, the example of 'massive flat screen TVs' as an indicator of relative comfort is overstated. They're dirt cheap these days!

And many people buy flat screens because they are cheaper than going out . TV is one of the cheapest form of entertainment/socialising you can get . One of the signs that there was going to be a recession in 2008 is that more people brought tvs as an alternative to going out

 

[Nicholas Lewis]

C4 News 2nd item is about the chaos on the railways in the North as Harper was up there meeting the Metro mayors although one didn't make it due to a cancellation.
Good to see the presenter also made the point about many trains disappear off the system daily so don't actually get called a cancellation.
Big moan about TPE but the mayor and studio presenter still refers to them as franchises.

 

[Peter Sarf]

C4 News 2nd item is about the chaos on the railways in the North as Harper was up there meeting the Metro mayors although one didn't make it due to a cancellation.
Good to see the presenter also made the point about many trains disappear off the system daily so don't actually get called a cancellation.
Big moan about TPE but the mayor and studio presenter still refers to them as franchises.

Yes it is all a mess. Statistics are coloured by services removed from the timetable at short notice rather than being cancelled. Safe to say that in the eyes of the public the railways are not seen as a credible industry and are of no purpose to many. That is the impression I get from people I meet who are mostly not using trains anyway. The best that can happen is that they ignore the railways' woes rather than complaining about their taxes being thrown at the railways.

Could the railways put their own house in order ?. I mean by looking at efficiencies. I fear not both due to intransigence but mostly due to all control being in the hands of government. Has the railway got itself trapped in a corner ?.

Occurs to me I should ask. Are there any working within the railways that can see/suggest any possible efficiencies ?.

 

[43066]

This is my view too. The railways have to be more efficient.

On what basis are the frontline staff in question being inefficient? I take it you’re an expert in railway ops to inform your “view”?

So if most of their pay rise goes back to the government why bother striking for said pay rise ?.

So are you suggesting nobody should ever get paid any more, because they will then pay more tax? That sounds suspiciously like abject nonsense to me.

An example of being selfish. Rather a lot of it around.

And lots of “I’m alright Jack” and bitterness also around.

 

[Bikeman78]

Well indeed.

Take my mum. Pension £15k pa (state plus widow). She's in a care home, a run of the mill no frills one. Her weekly fee has just gone up by £120. She now pays £960 per week (and believe me that's quite cheap). I had to sell the family home a couple of years ago to pay her care fees. Personally I'm very glad she's getting a 10% increase in he state pension - it will at least offset that £120 pw fee increase to a certain extent.

This, my friends, is the lot of many pensioners.

I can't begin to imagine how it costs that much to run a care home. Most of the staff are minimum wage aren't they? What happens to people that have nothing but state pension to pay with?

 

[43066]

I can't begin to imagine how it costs that much to run a care home. Most of the staff are minimum wage aren't they? What happens to people that have nothing but state pension to pay with?

Running care homes is a highly profitable enterprise.

 

[Kite159]

C4 News 2nd item is about the chaos on the railways in the North as Harper was up there meeting the Metro mayors although one didn't make it due to a cancellation.
Good to see the presenter also made the point about many trains disappear off the system daily so don't actually get called a cancellation.
Big moan about TPE but the mayor and studio presenter still refers to them as franchises.

Wasn't the one who didn't make it the Mayor from West Yorkshire who got caught up in cancellations due a PHTT in Morley?

 

[Peter Sarf]

On what basis are the frontline staff in question being inefficient? I take it you’re an expert in railway ops to inform your “view”?

Not an expert just someone on the outside who has seen efficiencies in other industries. Places where just expecting the state to cough up would never happen.

So are you suggesting nobody should ever get paid any more, because they will then pay more tax? That sounds suspiciously like abject nonsense to me.

No I am not, my reply was to the suggestion that a pay rise did not really cost the state much. If it does not cost the state much then surely its not much benefit to the staff getting the pay rise.

And lots of “I’m alright Jack” and bitterness around.

Afraid so - we are talking about humans here, most of whom would not do voluntary (unpaid) work so obviously do not see the most needy. But when someone wants money from the state they need to have a good excuse.

Running care homes is a highly profitable enterprise.

But some of these care homes seem to go bust so work that one out. They are very very expensive easily £1,000 per month so I am puzzled.

 

[Nicholas Lewis]

On what basis are the frontline staff in question being inefficient? I take it you’re an expert in railway ops to inform your “view”?

A lot of stations have plenty of platform staff from my travels today around SE but the real efficiency isn't the people operating the service and maintaining the rolling stock and infrastructure its the hidden people in back offices where efficiencies lie but that requires a change of mindset and until there is an acceptance that a totally safe railway is nirvana the opportunity won't be realised.

 

[Bikeman78]

It’s not just from Skegness. There are so many destinations that now require a wait of almost an hour in Nottingham if travelling to and from Mansfield. The Norwich to Liverpool train just misses the connection in both directions as does the Lincoln train. The train to Birmingham which connects at Derby with XC services to the SW also just misses the connection. I’ve used the Robin Hood Line regularly since it reopened to connect with trains in Nottingham but during the last 3 years have used it very rarely except for journeys to London where it does still connect. I don’t even use it much for local journeys as 1tph is not as convenient as the local buses.

Why don't they run the Mansfield line in the opposite half hour? Or would there be an equal number of poor connections to other destinations?

 

[Llanigraham]

Running care homes is a highly profitable enterprise.

And yet many are closing or reducing their patient loading.

 

[contrex]

As an aside and trying not to be snarky, the example of 'massive flat screen TVs' as an indicator of relative comfort is overstated. They're dirt cheap these days!

It's interesting how this idea of the despised feckless poor lolling around watching 'great big colour tellies' persists. You used to hear it decades ago. When I worked at TV Licensing we used to get anonymous letters denouncing neighbours for watching a GBCTV without a licence, often with additional sneers. The subjects almost invariably, on checking (if we bothered, it was OK to just bin them), turned out to be correctly licensed. Writers of letters to right wing newspapers complained about prisoners being able to watch colour TVs too.

I just found a 40 inch LCD TV for £20 on Gumtree local to me, another for £25, plenty of over 40 inches for £50 and under. In my local area people often put them out for folk to take away free, with little notices saying e.g. 'Working OK, knock on door for remote'. One would hope it hadn't rained, or a cat hadn't peed on them.

 

[Bikeman78]

A lot of stations have plenty of platform staff from my travels today around SE but the real efficiency isn't the people operating the service and maintaining the rolling stock and infrastructure its the hidden people in back offices where efficiencies lie but that requires a change of mindset and until there is an acceptance that a totally safe railway is nirvana the opportunity won't be realised.

There is an interesting post on another thread about the complications of fitting ATP to the 800s. I wonder how many millions that cost? Same the for 345s. Would anyone notice if it were quietly abolished?

 

[Peter Sarf]

It's interesting how this idea of the despised feckless poor lolling around watching 'great big colour tellies' persists. You used to hear it decades ago. When I worked at TV Licensing we used to get anonymous letters denouncing neighbours for watching a GBCTV without a licence, often with additional sneers. The subjects almost invariably, on checking (if we bothered, it was OK to just bin them), turned out to be correctly licensed. Writers of letters to right wing newspapers complained about prisoners being able to watch colour TVs too.

I just found a 40 inch LCD TV for £20 on Gumtree local to me, another for £25, plenty of over 40 inches for £50 and under. In my local area people often put them out for folk to take away free, with little notices saying e.g. 'Working OK, knock on door for remote'. One would hope it hadn't rained, or a cat hadn't peed on them.

How do you know the cat did not pee on the TV while it was in the house (on the wall ???) and that is why it is outed.

We have got an old Panasonic Vierra that was given away. It is mainly an ornament in the bedroom but we decided to huddle up under the duvet to watch the footie. I stood close to it to turn it off and realised its a decent source of heat !. I am going to have to review its efficiency as I had taken it for granted. Likewise, there are going to be a few wake up calls due to taking things for granted in the railway world I fear.

 

[Iskra]

It's interesting how this idea of the despised feckless poor lolling around watching 'great big colour tellies' persists. You used to hear it decades ago. When I worked at TV Licensing we used to get anonymous letters denouncing neighbours for watching a GBCTV without a licence, often with additional sneers. The subjects almost invariably, on checking (if we bothered, it was OK to just bin them), turned out to be correctly licensed. Writers of letters to right wing newspapers complained about prisoners being able to watch colour TVs too.

I just found a 40 inch LCD TV for £20 on Gumtree local to me, another for £25, plenty of over 40 inches for £50 and under. In my local area people often put them out for folk to take away free, with little notices saying e.g. 'Working OK, knock on door for remote'. One would hope it hadn't rained, or a cat hadn't peed on them.

There has been a scathing narrative about ‘The Underclass’ for hundreds of years. It’s only the TV’s that are a new addition.

Oh and TV’s are actually going out of fashion…

 

[philosopher]

As I said maybe Girvan-Stranraer or a similarly obscure line (Barton-upon-Humber must surely be England's biggest basket case line now?) but not the S&C. And probably not anything in Scotland or Wales as the political situation is very, very different.

From a quick look on Wikipedia, I am amazed the Barton-upon-Humber line survived the Beeching cuts. I assume there must have been some specific reason in the sixties why it was kept open.

 

[LowLevel]

From a quick look on Wikipedia, I am amazed the Barton-upon-Humber line survived the Beeching cuts. I assume there must have been some specific reason in the sixties why it was kept open.

The docks and ferry access until the Humber Bridge opened, I imagine.

 

[Kite159]

The docks and ferry access until the Humber Bridge opened, I imagine.

And I suspect the (now disused) freight area at New Holland after the bridge opened saved it from being closed outright.

 

[DynamicSpirit]

It's interesting how this idea of the despised feckless poor lolling around watching 'great big colour tellies' persists. You used to hear it decades ago. When I worked at TV Licensing we used to get anonymous letters denouncing neighbours for watching a GBCTV without a licence, often with additional sneers. The subjects almost invariably, on checking (if we bothered, it was OK to just bin them), turned out to be correctly licensed. Writers of letters to right wing newspapers complained about prisoners being able to watch colour TVs too.

Oh don't think anyone is seriously claiming that all or even most benefits claimants are deliberately avoiding work. I've no doubt that most are struggling to get by and are either working in low-paid jobs or would much prefer to be working. But equally, out of the - I gather, 5 million + claiming benefits - it would be astonishing if there weren't some people who have chosen to live that way. I can think of a few people I've known personally in the past who take that attitude. And I can also think if a somewhat greater number of people I've known who receive benefits and who would genuinely struggle to work, but who at the same time do seem to have a - to my mind, worrying - attitude that, because it would hard for them to work, the state automatically owes them a generous standard of living, without them needing to make any effort to see if there might be some work that they are able to do or some way that they might be able to contribute to society.

Unfortunately, I do get the impression that it's almost impossible to point out that some benefit claimants are probably not genuine without someone gratuitously misinterpreting the 'some' as if you'd said 'all' and then taking offence at what is actually their own misinterpretation.

 

[zwk500]

A lot of stations have plenty of platform staff from my travels today around SE but the real efficiency isn't the people operating the service and maintaining the rolling stock and infrastructure its the hidden people in back offices where efficiencies lie but that requires a change of mindset and until there is an acceptance that a totally safe railway is nirvana the opportunity won't be realised.

The issue with this is that in order to streamline the back offices requires a substantial investment in technology and data surveying to allow the computer systems to do their thing. Sadly, several times now, the back offices have had the staff cleared out without the investment in the data taking place at all. End result is even more overworked staff, leading to a greater total complement of back office staff to cover for sickness and catch up on the backlog.

 

[Magdalia]

From a quick look on Wikipedia, I am amazed the Barton-upon-Humber line survived the Beeching cuts. I assume there must have been some specific reason in the sixties why it was kept open.

The Humber Bridge opened in 1981. Until then the only way across the River Humber downstream of Goole was the ferry which sailed between Hull Corporation Pier and New Holland Pier. When the bridge opened the ferry was replaced by a bus service between Barton-upon-Humber and Hull.

So yes there was a specific reason in the sixties why it was kept open. The Barton-upon-Humber branch was a key part of the link between Grimsby and Hull.