We all knew it was a mistake and we told them so.
When the Tory government pushed through privatisation of railways a quarter of a century ago, it involved splitting up British Rail into more than 100 companies.
At the time, everyone, from Tory backbenchers and the Labour Party to British Rail managers, warned that it was a reckless plan that would cost money and do nothing to improve the railways.
The title of a book I wrote at the time said it all: On the Wrong Line.
Ever since, I’ve been writing about all the crazy aspects of the privatised railway that have made life difficult for passengers and cost taxpayers billions.
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The examples are endless: how buying a ticket has been made more difficult by the emphasis on competition; how train firms have been receiving millions in compensation as tracks were improved so services could run faster; how millions are wasted, with 400 bean counters paid to work out who is to blame for delays.
Now, astonishingly, the Government agrees with me and my fellow critics.
Ministers have been remarkably open about the failings of the system their predecessors created and have put forward a plan for Great British Railways that rather looks like the one Jeremy Corbyn suggested at the 2019 election.
Much of the document published this week could have been extracted verbatim from articles I have written:
- “The railways lack a guiding focus on customers, coherent leadership and strategic direction.”
- “They are too fragmented, too complicated and too expensive to run.”
- “Innovation is difficult. Incentives are often perverse.”
- “The sector lacks clear strategic direction.”
There are amusing examples of ridiculous situations this fragmentation has created. The document mentions an incident when a train hit a pheasant, causing a delay.
Who was responsible for the compensation? Well, apparently the train operator was liable for small birds, while Network Rail, the infrastructure company, had to pay up when trains hit big birds.
But they could not agree on whether a pheasant was a small or big bird. The document fails to tell us who finally coughed up.
Anyone would think from the criticism in the document that this structure had been created by a Labour government which the Tories were having to dismantle. But no, it was all the idea of the Tory administration led by John Major in the mid-1990s.
Independent research had shown British Rail was the most efficient railway in Europe.
The InterCity service developed by BR was highly profitable and even Network SouthEast, which provided London commuter services that had lost hundreds of millions annually, broke even.
Instead, the Government sold off chunks very cheaply and let in a host of private firms that were interested in short-term profits rather than long-term investment. The only surprise is that it has taken 25 years to work out it was all a bad idea.
Now the same political party wants to stick Humpty Dumpty back together again.
This is back to the future, as emphasised by the choice of logo to be used to portray this new organisation.
That will be the double arrow invented by BR in the 1960s and which has remained the much-loved sign on maps to denote a train station.
There is no doubt there will be benefits.
Buying tickets will be made easier through the National Rail Enquiries website, something it was prevented from doing because of the Tories wanting providers to compete with each other.
Millions will be saved by not having arguments about delays. The chaotic situation in 2018 caused by the lack of co-ordination between those drawing up time-tables and the company operating the trains will not be repeated.
But ideology still stops us getting the sensible railway we deserve.
Instead of running the trains themselves, Great British Railways will contract out services to private firms, most of which are owned by foreign state railways such as the French SNCF and the German Deutsche Bahn.
This will add cost and complexity.
At the last election, Labour suggested renationalising the whole system. This is three-quarters of the way there.
It would have been better to go the whole hog.
- Christian Wolmar writes a column for Rail magazine and his latest book is Cathedrals of Steam, the story of London’s railway stations, from Atlantic Books.
