Running A Railway

It has been pointed out in the last few days that we have the most expensive railways in the world. Are they then the best railways in the world? Errr, no! Why is this? Fundamentally, it is because, first of all we have a ludicrous business plan for running the railways which defies all common sense. Privatisation 16 years ago was a daft idea then and it is still a daft idea today. Dividing the whole thing into independent companies looking after the tracks, signalling, running trains etc has no merit whatsoever. John Major's government was running out of things to do. It needed some grand gesture; to look busy. So it privatised the biggest company still in public ownership - British Railways. The plan they dreamt up could never work. If you had studied Thomas the Tank Engine in detail, you would have known that Major's private railway would be a disaster. The idea of letting anybody bid for a franchise every few years leaving the operators with little room for manoeuvring and hiring the rolling stock from another company, provides no security and wastes vast sums of money every time the operator is changed - by end of contract or by sacking. One of many problems is that Ministers of Transport - and at the present time, that, everybody, is Geoff Hoon - can only conceive of time periods in four year bits between elections. This is too short a period for planning a railway. So, we don't plan the railways - we just muddle through at great expense.

When, many moons ago, Peter Parker was Chairman of BR he complained about the impossibility of agreeing anything with a Minister of Transport - and he had dealt with several during his term in office - because every plan halted after four years. And it's still the same. At the same time the private railways receive more public subsidy than they ever did as a nationalised company - and still they are the most expensive. Now, in a period when this country is going to need all the jobs it can get, Hoon tells us that we are placing an order for trains for the East Coast Main Line with Japan. These are not super-special Hi-Tec trains. They will be quieter and lighter than the 25 year old HST but they will travel at the same speed of 125 mph. Hoon then indulges in grandiose spin to suggest that placing an order in Japan will create or guarantee 12,500 jobs in the UK. Hitachi think they will create 200 jobs in the UK. Who do you believe? Hoon's figure will include every maintenance engineer, every maker of nuts bolts and screws who may supply a packet of something to the railways, every supplier of oil an hydraulic fluid, every accountant and possibly every spin doctor for all I know. What we will not do is provide real jobs making trains. Assembly, perhaps but that is all.

In recent weeks and months there have been many news reports in newspapers and on TV telling us about the steam locomotive, Tornado, an A1 pacific of a type designed in 1948 that has been built by enthusiasts up in Doncaster and is the first main line steam locomotive built in 50 years. We built the railways of the world. From Richard Trevithick and George Stephenson, we built a transport system that transformed the world. I have travelled in all five continents and seen in operation, locomotives that were built in Glasgow, Manchester, Vulcan Foundry in Newton-le-Willows and in Leeds. Now, we have to buy trains in Japan.

The first time i went to Australia and visited Sydney, of course I visited the harbour bridge - until the Opera House came along the bridge alone epitomised Australia for many of us. I was amazed when i got close to the bridge to see little plates that said "Dorman Long Middlesborough". I found out that the bridge was built by Dorman Long and by Cleveland Bridge in Darlington and opened in 1932. And I was proud of seeing a monument to what this country was once capable of doing. Now we make nothing and for ten years or more have kept the country afloat on a sea of debt. We close factories and transfer everyone to Kentucky Fried Chicken - who are one of the few companies that wants to employ any new staff.

Is there no one who can lead us out of this sad mess precipitated by the greed of the city men and let us, once again, start making things that people want to buy. Somewhere along the way, we may, once again, learn how to run a railway.