Tagged: a train of new TransPennine Mk 5 stock was berthed in an unprotected
location at Scarborough overnight on 27-28 February, which appears to have
been a mistake, as graffiti vandals struck. This photo was taken the next day at
York while the train was on a driver familiarisation run. John Vaughan32
Informed Sources Roger Ford
Modern Railways April 2019 http://www.modern-railways.comMore common sense from an old-British Rail hand
H
aving a sort-out in the
post new year lull, I came
across a copy of the 1998
Sir Robert Reid lecture given by civil
servant turned railwayman John
Welsby. Mr Welsby had been British
Rail’s Director, Provincial Services,
before moving to the Board. Sir Bob
appointed him as BR Chief Executive
in 1989 and then he had succeeded
Bob Reid II as the last BR chairman.
In his paper Mr Welsby took the
opportunity to take the first look
at privatisation ‘as it is, not as it
might be or might become’. One
topic he raised was performance.
After what he termed a ‘noticeable
hiccup’ in the months after Railtrack
was separated from BR in 1994,
performance had resumed the
upward trend that had characterised
the last years of BR. I have always
attributed this recovery to operating
staff, freed from the distraction of
privatisation, picking up where they
had left off and working amicably
together before the impact of the
new contractual relationships bit.
But by January 1988 John
Welsby noted that ‘after the last
nine months, or so’, performance,
far from continuing to improve, hadactually deteriorated. The privatised
railway was in danger of being
perceived ‘as having collected in two
years almost as much reputational
baggage as BR did in 50’.
Turning to safety, John Welsby
referred to concerns expressed
in the latest Railway Inspectorate
report. ‘Good intentions at top level,
good policies and setting good
examples are all necessary – but
if they are not followed through
to ensure reliable, consistent and
pragmatic safety practice on the
ground where the action is, then
all the aspirations and indeed the
commitments in the board room
are worth no more than hot air.
That was the lesson of Clapham’.
To which, two decades later, we
can add Cardiff and Waterloo.
His experience suggested that
both performance and safety
were showing the classic signs
of ‘under-management of the
nuts and bolts of running a safe
and customer-friendly railway’.HAINES DOCTRINE
Which brings us to Network Rail
Chief Executive Andrew Haines’
speech at the Golden Whistlesawards in January. Old softy that
I am, I found this speech inspiring
and we published it as a guest
editorial last month (p6).
Returning to the railway after
10 years in aviation, Mr Haines
took the view that Network Rail
had ‘possibly’ neglected the skills
and processes of operating the
railway in the interests of asset
management, major infrastructure
projects and workforce safety.
While these are ‘vital, critical,
essential undertakings’ they are not
sufficient for providing a reliable
service for passengers, he said. Rail
operations as a profession has not
been cultivated and valued as it
should have been. ‘That dwindling
expertise has contributed to our
collective failure to make sure
the railway works seamlessly as
a system (and) we are paying
the price for that in the level of
performance that we are delivering’.RESURGENT
Meanwhile, it seems that the
Department for Transport (DfT)
has been ahead of the game when
it comes to valuing old-railway
operating skills. Before Andrew
Haines’ appointment, DfT had
commissioned Chris Gibb’s report
and recommendations on Southernperformance (p84, August 2017
issue), Sir Michael Holden’s magisterial
report on South Western (p10,
November 2018 issue) and now
Richard George’s recommendations
on restoring Northern
performance (p18, last month).
Richard George probably has
the lowest profile of the three. He
started his railway career as a BR
management trainee and first made
his mark in strategic planning, first for
Freightliner and then InterCity where
he subsequently became Manager
at Waterloo. Come privatisation, he
was Deputy Managing Director of
the franchise-winning Great Western
management buyout, taking the
top job a year later. He was then a
director of FirstGroup until 2000.
None of this is in his LinkedIn
biography, which starts with
Mr George’s role in the transport
planning for the London Olympics in- After the Games he joined the
Interfleet consultancy, by then a part
of SNC-Lavalin, and he is now Group
Managing Director Rail & Transit.
NORTHERN
When Transport for the North (TfN)
asked DfT for help in recovering from
the May 2018 timetable crisis, DfT in
turn asked Richard George to ‘assist’
with railway industry performanceGeorge report emphasises local expertise
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