A proper BTP presence is worth every penny
Railways are the greatest expression of humanity’s capacity to work together.
Railways are the greatest expression of humanity’s capacity to work together. They rely on a high degree of cooperation to function effectively and are reliant on technology developed by countless numbers of people across the world. It is not surprising that they were first developed at a period when governments were becoming more stable and societies becoming more cohesive. Without that cohesion and stability, railways could not exist. They are the product of civilisation.
Britain was the pioneer for railway systems precisely because it was a relatively well managed country where people were able to trust this novel and sophisticated mode of transport. Of course railways are about technology ranging from the steam engine to in-cab signalling, but it would not be possible to operate a train system without trust. That is the key ingredient. Societies where that trust has broken down, such as various countries in Africa and Latin America, can no longer operate a train service if, for example, there is a risk of track been ripped up for scrap metal or thieves being able to rob passengers with impunity.
The incident on the Doncaster to London undermines that trust and that is why the industry has to provide a coherent response. One can’t speculate, legally, about the motives of the alleged perpetrator except to confirm, as the police have done, that there was no terrorist motivation. Superficially, therefore, it is all too easy to dismiss this incident as a one off that could have happened anywhere. That would be a mistake.
Of course such serious incidents are rare, but there are many minor events on trains that are relatively commonplace. Saturday night, with returning away football fans, can be a particularly harrowing time for ordinary train travellers. While this is nothing like as bad as it was a couple of decades ago, there is still considerable rowdiness requiring an enhanced policing presence and this can undermine people’s desire to travel.
More important, though, is the wider public perception of the railways which has undoubtedly been damaged by the incident, and undermined over time by the destaffing of stations and the cutbacks to the British Transport Police scaled back. Indeed, the BTP has been specifically targeted for reductions in recent years, with a 10 per cent cut in numbers to just 2,852 from 3,130 since 2023 and a further cut planned for next year as the budget has been further squeezed. This should instantly be reversed – the amount of money is chicken feed compared with the overall revenue of the railways. No one is suggesting that the railway needs a police presence at every station or on every train, but making the force totally invisible through cuts like this, which will undoubtedly largely reflected in cuts to public-facing staff, is a major mistake. Passengers are reassured by seeing the odd copper hanging round a station and this is a crucial part of the image of the railway. This reassurance should be a key aim of Great British Railways. Without a perception that the railways are safe, many people will be reluctant to jump on a train.
In fact, there are quite a lot of positive messages to be drawn from the two railway incidents at the beginning of November. The Huntingdon incident was handled in, frankly, a world class fashion that hopefully will be recognised in next year’s rail awards. The driver responded to people banging on his door by calling control and ensuring his train was moved across to the relief line, where it could be brought to a stop next to a platform, a move which may well have saved the lives of people who might otherwise have bled to death. There was a bit of luck, too, in that Huntingdon happens to be the HQ of the Cambridgeshire force, but the police response was nevertheless absolutely magnificent. And the courage of the LNER worker who defended passengers is surely worthy of a national award. All of this has reflected well on the railways and its staff.
The incident on Shap also has some positives and a key message to get across. The fact that the train derailed so badly and ended up in the six foot, yet stayed upright and there were no injuries demonstrates the resilience of the trains. Network Rail has invested huge sums to reduce the risk of such accidents, and while it was clearly a bit unlucky here in that none of the nearby sensors picked up the landslide, it can use the incident to highlight the work it is doing and to emphasise the wider message over climate change.
Hoewver if cuts to the BTP are allowed to go ahead, and if there are attempts to further reduce staffing, either at stations or on trains, those positive messages will be lost. Great British Railways will need to emphasise that the it understands the importance of public perception and its leaders must have the courage to express support for the maintenance of staffing levels and to resist cuts. Safety is a key factor in attracting people to the railways and by and large the public understands that already. Interestingly, on Times Radio, not known for its radical stances, I was interviewed by Hugo Rifkind who made precisely the point about railway staff, by asking me how much training they received to deal with such incidents.
We know the importance of this. London Overground, for example, is well used at night precisely because every station is staffed while trains run. I have mentioned before how I was impressed that when I used a Glasgow suburban train late one Saturday night, when I reached Queen Street the barriers were closed and I had to cough up a princely couple of quid before being allowed through. Elsewhere on the network the gates are often open after 7 or 8 at night as there are no staff to enforce their use. With bean counters hopefully no longer in charge of the railways, Great British Railways has an opportunity to justify the adjective in its name. The extra cost will pay for itself in revenue, even if that is difficult to prove.
Huw the Merry man?
I rather like Huw Merriman, who was rail minister in the last Tory government. He was approachable when in office, unlike his aloof boss Mark (now Lord) Harper, and did appear to genuinely care about the railways. So I offer my congratulations to him in his new job as chair of the High Speed Rail Group, a lobbying organisation for what it says on the tin.
However, the rather jaunty history of Merriman’s record as rail minister given in the press release announcing his appointment is, how can we put it gently, a somewhat rose-tinted view. It says ‘During his tenure at the DfT, Huw championed the shift from road to rail, strongly promoted rail apprenticeships and workforce upskilling and supported the growth of the sector’ It goes on ‘ and he has been a long standing champion of HS2’.
Hmmm. During his time as rail minister, he sat on his hands while a dispute with the drivers rumbled on for more than a year without any meeting between ministers and the union taking place. His hands remained firmly under his bottom, too, when Rishi Sunak, announced the scrapping of HS2 between Birmingham (or more precisely Handsacre Junction) and Crewe without any clear indication of the consequences. Surely this was a moment when a resignation might have been in order or at least some heavy behind the scenes protest? Also, during Merriman’s tenure, the rail reforms firt announced in 2018 became stuck as no one could quite agree how they should proceed.
Moreover, Merriman and Harper suggested in 2023 that wifi could be scrapped on trains as it was not necessary as people could get the signal through their own devices a point that was quickly debunked when it was revealed. And so was the proposal also made during Merriman’s tenure for all booking offices to be closed, which was only killed off when it was rejected in a study by Transport Focus.
