Railways: Reliability

Lord Snape Excerpts

Tuesday 31st October 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Snape (Lab)]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Patten. I cannot say that I actually remember the conversation in the Strangers’ Bar all those years ago to which he referred. It seems to be a much more exciting place these days from what I read in the newspapers. There is not very much discussion of the railway industry there now.

I am grateful, too, to the noble Baroness for the opportunity of speaking in the debate tonight. We like complaining about our railways. The noble Baroness talked about the PPM, as did the noble Lord, Lord Patten, and the fact that trains that arrive 10 minutes late are theoretically on time. The problem with changing the system—I speak with some degree of operating experience—is that there is no such thing as an on-time arrival. If every train runs on time, it means that the person in the wheelchair does not get on at the last minute and neither does the elderly gentleman who is not quite as fast on his feet as he used to be. We will see the failings of trying to run trains exactly on time when the new Thameslink service starts, on which there will be a two-minute headway. The first driver who inadvertently releases the driver safety device and brings his train to a stand will paralyse the railway for the rest of the afternoon. Human nature being what it is, that may well happen.

The noble Baroness started off by saying that only 81%—I wrote it down—of railway passengers were happy with their journey. A lot of retail organisations in this country would be more than happy if 81% of their customers expressed such satisfaction. If any of us left the Chamber now, we could pretty well guarantee being able to get one of three trains an hour to Birmingham, which would arrive in around 90 minutes, or three trains an hour to Manchester, which would arrive in two hours and 10 or 15 minutes. I do not know any other method of surface transport in the United Kingdom that could match that, whether or not those trains were up to 10 minutes late and declared to be on time when they arrived. The coach industry does not run timetables to the same times as the rail industry. When it comes to swift and on-time journeys, it is difficult to find a system of surface transport that matches the railway industry.

I shall return for a moment to the sojourn of the noble Lord, Lord Patten, in the Tisbury loop. During my time on the railway, that line was regarded as one of the southern region’s premier lines. It was singled when the railway industry was suffering from the 12-monthly financial arrangements laid down by Her Majesty’s Treasury. When the halcyon days come and the railway industry returns to being a nationalised one, I am sure that we will not return to that; there will be plenty of money, the Tisbury loop will be extended, and the double track between Waterloo and the south-west of England will presumably be restored—but I would not risk much money on that. I have to tell him that the Tisbury loop was added only comparatively recently. I do not know where he spent his time before it was installed, but timekeeping was a lot worse.

I wish to draw the attention of your Lordships’ House to a couple of matters that are slightly off the beaten track—no pun intended. Certain matters affect punctuality on our railway industry that Network Rail and the train operating companies do not have much power to correct. The first is the number of bridge bashes, when heavy goods vehicles hit bridges. The latest statistics are for about 10 months in 2016-17, in which there were 1,753 such incidents. It is difficult to know what else Network Rail can do to prevent those bridge strikes. It paints the bridges, puts up signs that say “Low bridge ahead”, prints the heights of the bridges on the signs, and often puts metal girders underneath the bridges to prevent damage to the bridge structures themselves. Yet almost 2,000 heavy goods vehicles hit those bridges every year. As ever, it is Network Rail or the taxpayer that picks up the bill, and the passengers who suffer delays.

It is scandalous that bridge strikes occur with such monotonous regularity. The road haulage industry ought to be held to account if we are to prevent them. The average delay is around two hours, and the cost of the repairs and delays over a year is about £23 million, according to Network Rail—all paid by the taxpayer, not the road haulage industry. But we are not talking just about delay to passengers, serious though that is, because bridge strikes are dangerous. Sooner or later, one of those 2,000 bridge strikes that takes place every year will displace the railway track above the road network. I need hardly overemphasise the danger that that would cause to a train travelling at a maximum speed of 125 miles an hour. I hope that the Minister will persuade her department to hold proper talks with the road haulage industry to see what can be done to prevent, or at least reduce dramatically, the number of bridge strikes.

Not all road hauliers shrug their shoulders, but the sad thing is that Network Rail estimates that over 50% of drivers of heavy goods vehicles do not know the height of the vehicle that they are driving. With the exception of three major companies—Stobart, Wincanton and DHL, all of which insist that their drivers know the weight and height of their vehicle before they leave—the road haulage industry as a whole appears not to take any great interest in such matters. Perhaps if it was forced to pick up the bill and a few serious prosecutions followed, it might do so.

The other matter that I want to raise in the next 30 seconds is the number of suicides on our railway, which again cause enormous delay to passengers as well as great suffering to the relatives of those involved. There were 252 suicides in the last year for which statistics were available on our mainline railways, amounting to 400,000 minutes of delay. I am not callous enough to say that no action should be taken when a suicide occurs. I saw my first one as a 16 year-old when I worked for the railway. In those slightly more cavalier days—that is the wrong term, but I cannot think of a more appropriate one—the stationmaster or appropriate officer covered the corpse with a tarpaulin and trains passed at reduced speed. Last week, there was a suicide at Harrow and Wealdstone. There are six tracks through it, all of which were closed for up to four hours following that suicide. Thousands of people using Euston station suffered delay. Again, perhaps the Minister could raise that with Network Rail. Its procedures, which I obviously cannot go into because of time, are far too protracted and ought to be speeded up.