BUSINESS COMMENTARY
BoJo gets a new loco for his train set
Alistair Osborne
Thursday January 30 2020, 12.01am, The Times
Who needs Jeremy Corbyn? It’s only seven weeks since the election and look at this: BoJo’s already renationalising the railways. He’s snaffled Northern Rail, a fine addition to the nation’s train set to go with the east coast line.
And, no, there weren’t a lot of other takers for the Arriva-run franchise — one as loco as they come, at least to judge by this week’s worst railway in Britain award from Transport Focus. No question the German-owned Arriva deserves a kicking. First for a daft bid. And then for Northern’s record of delays, strikes, driver shortages and timetabling clangers — or “years of dire performance”, as the passenger watchdog put it. Even so, it’s not as simple as that. Arriva’s made a fair job of the easier Chiltern franchise. And the latest derailment really says far more about the government’s clapped-out franchising system.
Go back to the contract award in December 2015 and there was enough hot air to recreate the golden age of steam. “Massive boost to rail services brings Northern Powerhouse to life” was the heading to the announcement, signed off by the then transport secretary Sir Patrick McLoughlin and the famous newspaper editor George Osborne. They spoke of how the award of Northern, plus the Transpennine services to FirstGroup, would deliver a “world class rail service”. By the end of its nine-year contract, Arriva would also have cut subsidies a year by “around £140 million”.
If only. The world-class railway was also dependent on the state-backed Network Rail delivering on promised upgrades. Instead the Bolton to Manchester electrification scheme arrived about two years late. And the Castleford corridor became a bottleneck after Arriva kept its vow to run more trains but without the extra track capacity required.
True, the Northern trains were late: partly Arriva’s fault, partly Spanish’s contractor CAF. But one reason taxpayer support to Northern is up year-on-year to £407 million is that it includes rebates for infrastructure delays. To boot, as on Go-Ahead’s Southern service, Northern was contractually obliged to introduce driver-only operated trains. Cue endless strikes, including 28 Saturdays on the trot.
Chris Burchell, Arriva’s UK trains chief, said “we wholeheartedly apologise”. But the group says it invested £600 million. And he can just about justify his remark: “largely because of external factors, the franchise plan had become undeliverable”.
But where you apportion blame is not the issue. As Sandy Needham, head of the West & North Yorkshire chamber of commerce, put it: “You can only run trains on tracks and timetables provided by Network Rail and the DFT [department for transport].” And, what’s clear lately “is the total lack of accountability within our rail network”.
It’s too much to expect the review by ex-BA boss Keith Williams to provide a quick fix, while Northern’s problems won’t be solved by a zippy London-Birmingham line planned with the first phase of HS2. And, meantime, the Transpennine and South Western franchises look perilously close to the buffers, as transport secretary Grant Shapps has hinted. Indeed, nationalise either of them and he’ll look a right fool. It was only in August that he handed their operator First Group another chance to goof up: this time on the west coast main line. Still, at least it’ll all keep Jezza happy.
