DfT in a Hurry on Rail Reform

[CAF397]

Really; How many lines closed during their last time in power, 2010-2024? Whereas new ones opened!

how many new lines in England opened?

Since 2020, however, how many fleets have been retired from service, and seat capacity removed from the network?

 

[LNW-GW Joint]

how many new lines in England opened?
Since 2020, however, how many fleets have been retired from service, and seat capacity removed from the network?

Well there's the Okehampton branch, with Ashington and EWR nearly ready.
Covid had a severe effect on passenger numbers, not yet restored, so it's no surprise trains have been removed from service or retired early.
There have been plenty of new trains ordered, even if the railway has taken too long to get them into service.
Are you forgetting the Elizabeth Line and HS2?
Oxford-Bicester-Marylebone opened in 2015.
The Ordsall Chord opened in 2017.
There's quite a long list of lines electrified 2010-2024, starting with Manchester-Golborne (WCML) in 2012, even after pauses/cancellation of some sections.

 

[43066]

How does any new Labour government struggling with public finances in an economy that's barely growing manage relations with union(s) whose leadership (and sometimes a majority of voting members) want above-inflation wage/salary increases?

Granting the latter is highly likely to stoke inflation that over time destroys individuals' savings (and has other adverse effects).

I assume unions provide a high percentage of Labour's funding. It's hard to say "no" when an organisation is beholden to a group.

One positive is despite the decline in business travel and strikes/train cancellations, passenger revenue is increasing, at least nominally. Passenger numbers are similarly pleasing notwithstanding debates about split ticketing and the Elizabeth Line.

The unions haven’t actually asked for above inflation increases since Covid; the sticking point has always been the attempted grab of Ts and Cs and a refusal by the previous government to allow any negotiation - this has been discussed many times.

The causes of the recent high inflation are well known, and I don’t think any credible economists have suggested they’re due to pay rises. Inflation has actually been falling recently, despite continued high wage growth in the wider economy, so there’s scant evidence that giving a pay rise to rail workers (that will only partially reverse a decline in real pay) will make any difference to that picture.

As per your last paragraph a grown up sensible government would negotiate with unions (or at least allow employers to do so) and work with them to encourage further growth in passenger numbers and revenue, and also to bring about reform. We have seen the results of the opposite approach over the past couple of years and it has been nothing short of disastrous - and has also utterly failed to reform anything - so a change is sorely needed.

Are some of the civil servants in the DfT either railway enthusiasts or those with a deep professional passion to see the railways move forward and prosper?

Peter Hendy is both of the above, AIUI, which bodes very well indeed.

It seems unlikely that they'd go through an overhaul and leave the massively varied terms and conditions as they are. Certainly not for new employees.

If the government’s priority is to get the railway running reliably again “in a hurry” it’s highly likely they will be left as is, at least in the short term, because it’ll be regarded as too expensive to change them. In fact that’s almost certainly what will happen.

 

[Enpointe]

Often the tech payments are for employees time, not simply for accepting the technology. For example those with phones and tablets are responsible for ensuring they are charged every day at home. The minute or so each day maybe going and plugging them in, adds up over 200 days a year.

Employees are also generally expected to familiarise themselves with them in their own time and sort out any technical problems in their own time. It's rare that anytime is given within the working day for such tasks.

funny how this is not the case in other Public sector employers who deploy phones and tablets to their workforce and ensure that vehicles and signing on points have access to charging infrastructure for tablets.
training in those public sector organisatiosn absolutely does take place in work hours ( or payment / TOIL given for training done on rest days)


time in the working day to do things - are you suggesting that there in so little time given between Sign on and first planned activity and/or there are no provisions for time to be taken in the working day for routine management /admin activtiy

 

[43066]

time in the working day to do things - are you suggesting that there in so little time given between Sign on and first planned activity and/or there are no provisions for time to be taken in the working day for routine management /admin activtiy

Absolutely no time at all. You’re given time to check notices, walk to the train, key on etc. All worked out down to the minute.

 

[KNN]

The unions haven’t actually asked for above inflation increases since Covid; the sticking point has always been the attempted grab of Ts and Cs and a refusal by the previous government to allow any negotiation - this has been discussed many times.

The causes of the recent high inflation are well known, and I don’t think any credible economists have suggested they’re due to pay rises. Inflation has actually been falling recently, despite continued high wage growth in the wider economy, so there’s scant evidence that giving a pay rise to rail workers (that will only partially reverse a decline in real pay) will make any difference to that picture.

As per your last paragraph a grown up sensible government would negotiate with unions (or at least allow employers to do so) and work with them to encourage further growth in passenger numbers and revenue, and also to bring about reform. We have seen the results of the opposite approach over the past couple of years and it has been nothing short of disastrous - and has also utterly failed to reform anything - so a change is sorely needed.



Peter Hendy is both of the above, AIUI, which bodes very well indeed.



If the government’s priority is to get the railway running reliably again “in a hurry” it’s highly likely they will be left as is, at least in the short term, because it’ll be regarded as too expensive to change them. In fact that’s almost certainly what will happen.

In the short term, probably, but the roles for the same grade within GBR must become interchangeable. Station staff in Leeds and Norwich on different salaries with different duties and conditions can't make sense long term if it's all one employer.

There might be variance for on the ground differences, long distance v local etc. but the basic jobs being aligned seems inevitable.

 

[Falcon1200]

Because it’s longstanding industry practice.

It was most certainly not at any time whatsoever during my 38 year railway career, Not when I was a Booking Office Clerk, TOPS Office Clerk or Controller. Improvements to industry practices should be good for both staff and employer, not seen as a way of extracting more cash from the railway, which requires huge public subsidy to continue operating.

how many new lines in England opened?

Quite a few, as per the post immediately after yours!

 

[43066]

In the short term, probably, but the roles for the same grade within GBR must become interchangeable. Station staff in Leeds and Norwich on different salaries with different duties and conditions can't make sense long term if it's all one employer.

There might be variance for on the ground differences, long distance v local etc. but the basic jobs being aligned seems inevitable.

You’d be surprised - some TOCs still have differences between the same grades in different locations that date back to BR. With that in mind, it’s hard to imagine that thirty years worth of Ts and Cs divergence will easily be reversed.

It was most certainly not at any time whatsoever during my 38 year railway career, Not when I was a Booking Office Clerk, TOPS Office Clerk or Controller. Improvements to industry practices should be good for both staff and employer, not seen as a way of extracting more cash from the railway, which requires huge public subsidy to continue operating.

I can assure you it is longstanding industry practice for the grades covered by collective bargaining arrangements - namely traincrew.

Improvements to industry practices should be good for both staff and employer, not seen as a way of extracting more cash from the railway, which requires huge public subsidy to continue operating.

Agreed.

It’s not a hill I’d choose to die on, and it’s all negotiable, as I have said (with emphasis on negotiable). It’s a tiny cost in the scheme of things, as I’m sure you’d agree.

It might actually prove more expensive to take people off roster and bring them in for training sessions to learn new tech.

 

[class 9]

TPE is not run by the DfT. Public ownership and who actually runs a state-owned company are not the same thing. Just as the NHS and Post Office are not run by civil servants.

It's generally recognised that the OLR-owned operators tend to have more independence from the interference of civil servants.

They very much are run by the DfT, under the terms of the NRCs companies have to get permission from the Secretary of State for the majority of decisions.

 

[Tobberz]

Does anyone know the process by which the railways were nationalised last time? I presume each company was taken under government control individually, then they were operationally merged over a long period of time (years? decades?). Clearly that is the most likely way any further nationalisation will happen this time around, with the benefit that a large % of the TOCs are already there.

 

[Enpointe]

Does anyone know the process by which the railways were nationalised last time? I presume each company was taken under government control individually, then they were operationally merged over a long period of time (years? decades?). Clearly that is the most likely way any further nationalisation will happen this time around, with the benefit that a large % of the TOCs are already there.

Post WW2 ? it is my understandign that basically thre wartime arrangments didn't get wound down until the transtion to British Railways was in place , consequently the railways did not really return to their 1923 - Outbreak of WW2 period management arrangments

 

[WesternLancer]

Does anyone know the process by which the railways were nationalised last time? I presume each company was taken under government control individually, then they were operationally merged over a long period of time (years? decades?). Clearly that is the most likely way any further nationalisation will happen this time around, with the benefit that a large % of the TOCs are already there.

Technically all just done overnight as I understand it. Private one day. State owned the next. Following the passage of the legislation in parliament.

Operational changes would have been a different matter and would have only changed gradually over time. But nationalisation was about ownership, not operation.

What is proposed now is not comparable since the existing system is not comparable with pre 1948.

 

[coppercapped]

Does anyone know the process by which the railways were nationalised last time? I presume each company was taken under government control individually, then they were operationally merged over a long period of time (years? decades?). Clearly that is the most likely way any further nationalisation will happen this time around, with the benefit that a large % of the TOCs are already there.

Yes, many people know how and why the railways were nationalised in the first place, you only have to look it up!

A, brief, history lesson!

One hundred and six years ago Sidney Webb wrote what became the original Clause IV of the Labour Party’s constitution:

To secure for the workers by hand or by brain the full fruits of their industry and the most equitable distribution thereof that may be possible upon the basis of the common ownership of the means of production, distribution and exchange, and the best obtainable system of popular administration and control of each industry or service.

Twenty years later in view of the inevitable coming war the Government placed practically all the railways under Government operational control under an order made under Regulation sixty nine of the Defence (General) Regulations 1939.

In 1942 two significant internal political events occurred. Firstly, the annual Labour Conference, with an eye on its constitution and Clause IV, passed a resolution urging the Government to coordinate road, rail and canal transport under national ownership - with the aim of aiding the war effort. This was show business as by this time the railways were already operated as one unit by the Ministry of War Transport so it wasn't such a big step to suggest they should be combined as one business.

In November of the same year the Beveridge Report was presented to parliament. This report was the result of a cross-party study aimed at identifying the principles necessary to banish poverty and 'want' from Britain. Its recommendations were to be implemented after the end of the war. The Report proposed a system of social security which would be operated by the state:

Social insurance fully developed may provide income security; it is an attack upon Want. But Want is one only of five giants on the road of reconstruction and in some ways the easiest to attack. The others are Disease, Ignorance, Squalor and Idleness.

Beveridge's suggestions were adopted by all the political parties for the 1945 election with Labour, considering its Clause IV, adding national ownership of the ‘commanding heights’ of the economy. After the election the Attlee government created its version of the Beveridge Report recommendations by setting up the NHS, thereby nationalising the hospitals; setting up National Insurance in 1946 and created a safety net by the National Assistance Act of 1948. It also nationalised about a fifth of the economy:
◦ coal;
◦ railways;
◦ canals;
◦ docks and harbours;
◦ road transport;
◦ the Bank of England;
◦ civil aviation;
◦ external telecommunications (Cable and Wireless);
◦ electricity;
◦ gas; and
◦ steel.
(Internal telecommunications were already operated by the General Post Office, the GPO, with the exception of those in Hull).

The 1947 Transport Act nationalising all commercial inland transport set up the British Transport Commission to oversea this huge conglomerate and to encourage each form of transport to specialise in the types of services for which it was most suited. The railway companies to be nationalised were those listed in the order made under Regulation sixty nine of the Defence (General) Regulations 1939 so some small ones slipped through the net.

The aim was the coordination of inland transport, so it would have been sensible to have set up the BTC functionally - engineering, operations, commercial, financial and so on - so the most effective mode, or modes, for a particular movement could have been identified. But the Act setting up the BTC also set up its 'agents' by form of transport, the Railway Executive (RE), the London Transport Executive (LTE), the Waterways Executive, Road Haulage and the Hotels Executive. The Government appointed the members of these Executives directly, not the BTC.

Of course the result was that each Executive fought its own corner and the BTC had little or no control over them - it did not control the Executives' budgets except at the highest level, it could not move Members of an Executive to a different job or fire those who were thwarting the aims of the Commission because these members of the Executives had been selected by the Government.

The RE continued to manage the railways as if they were still the ‘Big Four’ except that they were now called ‘Regions’ and not ‘Companies’. The boundaries between them remained untouched until some changes were made a dozen or so years later.

The BTC’s financial remit was vague, to say the least ‘To break even taking one year with another’. No requirements about return on capital or service levels or market share or improvements in safety or anything else. And the Common Carrier conditions for the railways and canals were still in force which the Government did nothing to remove. And the Transport Commissioners for Rates - a Government creation - ensured that income lagged behind costs.

The result of all this was the decline of the railways over the next 35 years to near insignificance. Loss of freight traffic, loss of passenger traffic, closures of miles of railway even before Beeching, the waste of money developing and building the BR Standard steam locomotives, the loss of 10 years development in diesel traction and the refusal to extend AWS until the Harrow accident. And so on and so forth.

In the late 1970s, early 1980s was there an attempt to further tighten and focus the business management of the railways — originally set in train (see what I did there?) by Dr. Beeching — with the emergence of the ‘Sectors’. Initially these operated through the regional operating framework but eventually the regional structure faded away.

Then came ‘privatisation’…

 

[CAF397]

Well there's the Okehampton branch, with Ashington and EWR nearly ready.

Last two not opened yet (addressing the initial post)

Covid had a severe effect on passenger numbers, not yet restored, so it's no surprise trains have been removed from service or retired early.

its not beyond the realm of possibility that we will be back to 2019 numbers (which was a record breaking year for passengers). That capacity will soon be needed.

There have been plenty of new trains ordered, even if the railway has taken too long to get them into service.

Most of those are for whole fleet replacement.

Are you forgetting the Elizabeth Line and HS2?

I did forget the EL, but HS2 is far from open.

Oxford-Bicester-Marylebone opened in 2015.

I did forget that one, thank you!

The Ordsall Chord opened in 2017.

Indeed, and in reality it has actually managed to decimate cross Manchester journeys, and remove capacity. It was planned alongside Platform 15/16 at Piccadilly, and Oxford Road enhancements.

There's quite a long list of lines electrified 2010-2024, starting with Manchester-Golborne (WCML) in 2012, even after pauses/cancellation of some sections.

Again, not directly related to the initial comment of new rail lines.

 

[edwin_m]

Todmorden Curve was opened during the Tory government. A very short piece of track but it did enable a new train service connecting places that had no convenient link before.

 

[SamYeager]

Often the tech payments are for employees time, not simply for accepting the technology. For example those with phones and tablets are responsible for ensuring they are charged every day at home. The minute or so each day maybe going and plugging them in, adds up over 200 days a year.

Employees are also generally expected to familiarise themselves with them in their own time and sort out any technical problems in their own time. It's rare that anytime is given within the working day for such tasks.

Perhaps you could explain how a max of 365 minutes a year becomes more than 200 days a year?

 

[12LDA28C]

Perhaps you could explain how a max of 365 minutes a year becomes more than 200 days a year?

That's not what was claimed... 'adds up over 200 days a year' is not the same as 'adds up to over 200 days a year'.

 

[eldomtom2]

Yes, many people know how and why the railways were nationalised in the first place, you only have to look it up!

A, brief, history lesson!

One hundred and six years ago Sidney Webb wrote what became the original Clause IV of the Labour Party’s constitution:

Twenty years later in view of the inevitable coming war the Government placed practically all the railways under Government operational control under an order made under Regulation sixty nine of the Defence (General) Regulations 1939.

In 1942 two significant internal political events occurred. Firstly, the annual Labour Conference, with an eye on its constitution and Clause IV, passed a resolution urging the Government to coordinate road, rail and canal transport under national ownership - with the aim of aiding the war effort. This was show business as by this time the railways were already operated as one unit by the Ministry of War Transport so it wasn't such a big step to suggest they should be combined as one business.

In November of the same year the Beveridge Report was presented to parliament. This report was the result of a cross-party study aimed at identifying the principles necessary to banish poverty and 'want' from Britain. Its recommendations were to be implemented after the end of the war. The Report proposed a system of social security which would be operated by the state:

Beveridge's suggestions were adopted by all the political parties for the 1945 election with Labour, considering its Clause IV, adding national ownership of the ‘commanding heights’ of the economy. After the election the Attlee government created its version of the Beveridge Report recommendations by setting up the NHS, thereby nationalising the hospitals; setting up National Insurance in 1946 and created a safety net by the National Assistance Act of 1948. It also nationalised about a fifth of the economy:
◦ coal;
◦ railways;
◦ canals;
◦ docks and harbours;
◦ road transport;
◦ the Bank of England;
◦ civil aviation;
◦ external telecommunications (Cable and Wireless);
◦ electricity;
◦ gas; and
◦ steel.
(Internal telecommunications were already operated by the General Post Office, the GPO, with the exception of those in Hull).

The 1947 Transport Act nationalising all commercial inland transport set up the British Transport Commission to oversea this huge conglomerate and to encourage each form of transport to specialise in the types of services for which it was most suited. The railway companies to be nationalised were those listed in the order made under Regulation sixty nine of the Defence (General) Regulations 1939 so some small ones slipped through the net.

The aim was the coordination of inland transport, so it would have been sensible to have set up the BTC functionally - engineering, operations, commercial, financial and so on - so the most effective mode, or modes, for a particular movement could have been identified. But the Act setting up the BTC also set up its 'agents' by form of transport, the Railway Executive (RE), the London Transport Executive (LTE), the Waterways Executive, Road Haulage and the Hotels Executive. The Government appointed the members of these Executives directly, not the BTC.

Of course the result was that each Executive fought its own corner and the BTC had little or no control over them - it did not control the Executives' budgets except at the highest level, it could not move Members of an Executive to a different job or fire those who were thwarting the aims of the Commission because these members of the Executives had been selected by the Government.

The RE continued to manage the railways as if they were still the ‘Big Four’ except that they were now called ‘Regions’ and not ‘Companies’. The boundaries between them remained untouched until some changes were made a dozen or so years later.

The BTC’s financial remit was vague, to say the least ‘To break even taking one year with another’. No requirements about return on capital or service levels or market share or improvements in safety or anything else. And the Common Carrier conditions for the railways and canals were still in force which the Government did nothing to remove. And the Transport Commissioners for Rates - a Government creation - ensured that income lagged behind costs.

The result of all this was the decline of the railways over the next 35 years to near insignificance. Loss of freight traffic, loss of passenger traffic, closures of miles of railway even before Beeching, the waste of money developing and building the BR Standard steam locomotives, the loss of 10 years development in diesel traction and the refusal to extend AWS until the Harrow accident. And so on and so forth.

In the late 1970s, early 1980s was there an attempt to further tighten and focus the business management of the railways — originally set in train (see what I did there?) by Dr. Beeching — with the emergence of the ‘Sectors’. Initially these operated through the regional operating framework but eventually the regional structure faded away.

Then came ‘privatisation’…

You've completely left out the reorganisation of the railways in the 1960s, for starters.

 

[coppercapped]

You've completely left out the reorganisation of the railways in the 1960s, for starters.

Yes, of course I did — intentionally. I wrote that it was a brief history lesson...

The 1960s changes had nothing to do with the question I was answering which was:

Does anyone know the process by which the railways were nationalised last time? SNIPPED

 

[yorksrob]

I sense a "The railway being run for the sake of the railway not the passenger" situation being seen very soon

Whoever its been run for for the last three years, it's certainly not been the passenger.

 

[whoosh]

There are definitely things where the union need to wise up a bit, and accept that it’s 2024. Wanting a payment for learning a new type of train is insanity.

I have NEVER, EVER heard of this. And that's with 20+ years in the industry.

Can you elaborate with examples?

 

[Krokodil]

I have NEVER, EVER heard of this. And that's with 20+ years in the industry.

Can you elaborate with examples?

The only things I can think of are overtime where training cannot be fitted into normal hours, and increases in basic pay when additional responsibilities are taken on (such as where a new train is DOO-P).

Surely those things (payment of overtime for extra hours worked and higher basic pay for extra responsibilities) aren't unusual in most industries?

 

[Sly Old Fox]

I have NEVER, EVER heard of this. And that's with 20+ years in the industry.

Can you elaborate with examples?

I received a payment for the most recent type of train I learnt. I didn’t ask for it, but I was given it. It was four figures. Apparently our contract was only to drive the old type of train so a payment was given for learning a new one.

I don’t want to giveaway any personal details so I can’t be any more specific.

 

[RexMundi]

The only things I can think of are overtime where training cannot be fitted into normal hours, and increases in basic pay when additional responsibilities are taken DOO-P).

Surely those things (payment of overtime for extra hours worked and higher basic pay for extra responsibilities) aren't unusual in most

I had a week of rds during my 2 week 800 course but I may of had a one off payment when 390’s were introduced, it was a long time ago though so I maybe wrong

 

[Snow1964]

Apparently our contract was only to drive the old type of train so a payment was given for learning a new one.

Does that mean if old type of train is withdrawn, you could potentially have effectively been out of contract, and not paid any more.

I find it strange that you have a contract which is train type specific.

 

[Enpointe]

Does that mean if old type of train is withdrawn, you could potentially have effectively been out of contract, and not paid any more.

I find it strange that you have a contract which is train type specific.

it's amazing how little knowlege of what contracts mean is held by some people in 'Management', the early rounds of the privatisation of Patient transport Service Ambulance contracts showed that, where commissioners / hospitals didn't realise that certain types of emergency transfer were actually part of the PTS contract, becasue when the PTS provider was the local NHS service it was the same control rooms able to taks a blue light vehicle to do it.
I do wonder if this may be down to soem of the stuff were we have seen disparete bits of rails smushed together ( e.g. 'central trains' eastern bit of regional services being smushed in with MML to form EMT > EMR ( and the whole 'Senior Conductor' vs Guard thing that EMR ?still? has ( becasue the Guards were on MML HSTs and had a train manager / chief steward type to do commericla stuff )

 

[172007]

I received a payment for the most recent type of train I learnt. I didn’t ask for it, but I was given it. It was four figures. Apparently our contract was only to drive the old type of train so a payment was given for learning a new one.

I don’t want to giveaway any personal details so I can’t be any more specific.

What type of train?

Let's be honest surely you can't be singled out unless it's a class 139 or maybe one of a handful or less that sign Class 93's.

 

[LNW-GW Joint]

its not beyond the realm of possibility that we will be back to 2019 numbers (which was a record breaking year for passengers). That capacity will soon be needed.

Most of those are for whole fleet replacement.
I did forget the EL, but HS2 is far from open.

Again, not directly related to the iniatial comment of new rail lines.

If there's a rail investment beauty contest between Labour 1997-2010 and Tories 2010-24, the latter wins hands down.
Labour managed 9 miles of wiring (Crewe-Kidsgrove, a WCRM spin-off), the Tories something like 250 miles, even with the recent cutbacks.
Plus large numbers of new trains (IEP, Thameslink etc).
HS2 may be far from open, but something like £30 billion has been spent on it.
Labour did get HS1 and the new complex at St Pancras/King's Cross built.
Reading and New St rebuilds were spread across both government's time.

Much of the Tory investment was promised in the Coalition period (2010-15), and delivery (by railway professionals) has certainly been patchy.
Labour has yet to commit anything like the same investment in this parliament.
Changing the name on the door from DfT to GBR doesn't count.

 

[Highview]

Daily Telegraph (paywalled) reporting today that the London Mayor has put a long term funding bid (£500m pa) to the Government of twice the current grant to TfL - if this is accurate the response will be a insight into the new Government's position on rail funding.

 

[LNW-GW Joint]

The DfT organisation chart was updated again yesterday, including the new ministers.

DfT and transport NDPB organisational charts

Department for Transport (DfT) and non-departmental public bodies (NDPB) structure charts and organisational data.

www.gov.uk

Many of the jobs in the Rail Services Group (under Alex Hynes) look destined to become part of GBR.
If it's any guide to GBR regional structure, the roles seem to be layered into North, Central and South responsibilities
The passenger service contracts now appear in two "Market Lead" groups, one for Anglia/South/West and the other for Midlands/North/Wales.

Three jobs stand out in the Major Rail Projects Group.
Peter Wilkinson, long the bane of the unions when he ran the franchising unit, has an undefined "Special Projects" role.
The job which covers HS2 delivery is "Vacant".
There is a separate job called "Euston" which includes private financing.

It's hard to know how this might change as GBR is established, but it appears to be the new government's present view of its rail responsibilities.
Maybe it will look different after the King's speech later today.