Recent content by Metroland

Hi, Yep Network rail are very keen to reduce the numbers of their boxes by quite a considerable margin very quickly. It never ceases to amaze me how quick they are moving in some areas, lots of boxes have now very short lives with contracts being awarded all the time. Thanks for the info, I am...

For now. Not going to help the case especially when NR already £660,000 out of pocket because of the cap. Depends whose fault it is of course.

There's no easy answer, but there are ways to do it, and NR has had some success so far as have the FOCs.

Really, this forum is one of the worst? Low levels of debate, poor fact checking, vested interests and rudeness abounds from rail staff and spotters mob mentality.

Believe it or not I have other things to do rather than respond to your 'cheap assertions' that I don't do my research, or other people's assertions I don't know anything about the rule book. Thankfully someone backed my up on the latter point that knows different. Nevertheless, just for you I...

http://www.rail-reg.gov.uk/upload/pdf/rvfm-aecom-people-march2011.pdf P31

Don't agree, it would increase their understanding of the big picture, feel a bigger part of an overall team, and save a lot of delay when trains are stuck for no good reason because the MOM is stuck in traffic. Learning to wind points is a very easy task well within the capabilities of a...

Care to explain where there has been an increase in micromanagement (indeed there is now a government policy to cut this) and increases in the numbers of managers? The numbers speak for themselves. Some of it of course is to manage all the interfaces after privatisation. Rather than inject...

I tend to agree. What tends to happen is many companies (railway ones in particular because of past associations with military style command and control management) operate this kind of parent/child relationship with employees. You cannot motivate emotionally mature people by treating them as...

I'd agree that there is a mindset there of that. A lot of Victorian practices go on throughout British industry, dating from a time where many workers were barely literate. These days A levels and degrees are fast becoming 'the norm'. People can think for themselves, they do not need constant...

The point is it is another option, when you are queuing for a newspaper or chocolate bar you could pick up a selected range of tickets to popular destinations. Many retail establishments on the high street have had to diversify in order to survive, likewise in order to save booking offices, the...

Most tickets are now sold through self-service machines and across the internet, the point is sale of tickets is exactly the sort of area that the private sector does well at and there are numerous ways this can be done without sticking the the old-fashioned model, which is also subject to...

More passengers does bring down costs to a point, should you be filling empty seats. However, the railway has been a victim of it's own success, as at some stage you need to run more trains, therefore cancelling out some of the previous efficiency gains in terms of train crew and train set...

There's several ways to reduce costs but there's no magic bullet: - Innovation: Cheaper, better trains and control systems, infrastructure installation etc - People: Making people more responsible and highly skilled, thereby reducing numbers, especially managers. Skilled people do not need...

Wouldn't take any notice of TW, it's a one man bus-spotting obsessive. Apart from no bus company is going to pay £100 bn plus to convert the rail network for a service 2-3 times slower - actually buses are even more heavily subsidised than trains in many cases - his figures leave a lot to be...