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as a partially impartial observer* i'd like to point out that during the fifty odd years of railway nationalisation they were basically left to rot, performance both in terms of trains run and percentage delayed/cancelled was never worse and they killed quite a lot of people.
the current set up is arguably just as bonkers in many ways but you can't argue with the figures really: more trains, carrying more people, more safely and with better performance than ever seen before.
as a rail user though i can say that the recent fare increases are a joke. a total slap in the face for millions of people who have no choice.
*confession time. i do work for network rail but have no vested interest really. the lefty in me would like to work for a fully nationalised institution but i'm note sure it's viable or would necessarily help matters any more. the bit i work on renews the electrical power supply infrastructure. in my little area we're basically renewing everything, transformers, switchgear, cables in sussex, wessex and kent. most of the kit we're replacing is long since life-expired and well over fifty years old. some of the cables are over a hundred. for the entire existence of BR this stuff was just left to rot, fail and blow up. there were literally no renewals let alone investment, enhancement or expansion.
nr has a massive public image problem i think. most everything i've seen in the ten years i've worked on the railway is of a hard working, unglamorous (that's being kind) bunch of people, the huge majority of whom are committed to doing everything they can to make the railway run better. you would be amazed at the literally hundreds of thousands of man hours that go on behind the scenes every day and night to maintain and upgrade the railway. it's a shame that the only time network rail gets any press is when one senior sleazeball get accused (and quietly exonerated btw) of improprieties or something goes wrong. the kind of jobs like the one that overran at liverpool street two chistmases ago, go on every weekend. but that's the nature of the business i guess.
i can only imagine the "fat cat managers" based headlines that are going to greet the news that tssa members have recently balloted for non-strike industrial action amongst their low grade mangerial staff (of which i am one). fact is though in the four years i've been in i've had no pay rise above the rate of inflation, no bonus, my pension has been looted, there's no prospect of promotion and seen repeated rounds of redundancies and restructurings. it's frustrating when you and everyone around you is working their bollocks off for little reward and no recognition and still the public perception is that we're rolling about in goverment funded cash picking our arses while your train is cancelled.
anyway, rant over. i look forward to the articles in the mail about you are paying for my fictional gold plated public sector pension interspersed with vox pops from grumpy liverpool street commuters speaking their branes.
_________________ Back off Warchild, seriously. http://elvers.bandcamp.com/
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