Simon Calder, also known as The Man Who Pays His Way, has been writing about travel for The Independent since 1994. In his weekly opinion column, he explores a key travel issue – and what it means for you.
Oscar Wilde’s maxim that the only thing worse than being talked about is not being talked about does not apply to the railways. As with air traffic control and nuclear reactors, the less heard about them in the media, the better,
The public wants rail services to run safely, reliably and without a fuss. If a train operator is in the news, it is not likely to be a positive story.
Few transport organisations have been talked about so intensively as Avanti West Coast – which runs trains between London, the West Midlands, northwest England, north Wales and southern Scotland. Occasionally.
The firm is a joint venture involving First Group and Trenitalia (the Italian state operator). It is currently running only one train an hour from both Manchester and Birmingham to the capital, rather than three. Mind the gap in the schedules.
On BBC Breakfast on Friday morning, the transport secretary, Grant Shapps protested that this was not the case – but was sadly mistaken.
His department signed off the reduction in services, which Avanti blames on train drivers being unwilling to work on days off and unusually high levels of sickness. The rail unions say the company should simply employ more people. The train operator is hoping to step up services soon, I understand, but the severely reduced timetable is expected to be in place until at least 9 September.
The passenger, meanwhile, is the unwilling victim in a mighty squabble that is ultimately between the government and the unions. The conflict can be summed up as: who runs the railways?
Among many passengers on the West Coast main line, the impression right now is that no one is in control.
Last Sunday afternoon my colleague, Helen Coffey, attempted a journey from Lancaster to London – the day after the Aslef train drivers’ strike, and so a particularly busy day.
“The journey didn’t get off to a smooth start after the train arrived around 15 minutes late,” she reports. “Once on board, it was clear that the air con wasn’t working particularly well. Part way into the journey it was announced that the card machine wasn’t working, so food and drink could not be purchased on board.
“After some ominous announcements about a possible technical issue with the train and some very slow running, we trundled…
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