Another New Year's resolution for the PIP

Only one country has a railway service the customers can depend on, so I have heard, and that country is Switzerland. I only have experience of two – the UK and Sweden. I don’t know which is worse. In the UK the trains are disrupted in the autumn – because of the dead leaves falling on the line – and in Sweden during the winter – because of the snow and ice. It seems that the PIP – the People In Power – in the UK hope that, this autumn the leaves will not fall off the trees. They have every year since railways were invented and indeed many millions of years before that, but perhaps not just this year… And in Sweden the PIP don’t believe that there will be snow and ice again, not this year. They really don’t need to prepare for that again.

Now I don’t have recent figures for how it was last autumn in the UK, but I have very fresh information on how it was – and still is – in Sweden this winter. Trains were cancelled in numbers that can only be described as disgraceful. If one counts local traffic, the numbers are in the hundreds of cancelled trains per day on the worst days. During the Christmas rush, with people trying to get home for the holiday, and with only a couple or three days for those who had not taken vacation, there were apparently around thirty cancelled trains a day to and from the capital city, and hundreds of trains seriously delayed from an hour to several hours. And information was generally regarded as almost non-existent. Passengers stood or sat in the Central Station and dared not leave for fear that the situation for just their train might change momentarily, and they would miss their chance if they left the building.

It is now the middle of January, and the situation is better, but still a long way from being resolved. Four weeks ago, shortly before Christmas, I was on my way to Stockholm. I was going to take the 8:15 train. When it arrived I discovered that the 7:15 had been cancelled, and my train was full with people standing in every nook and cranny. Not only that, but the train, which normally has five coaches, this morning only had four. A week later I and my wife were on our way to Stockholm again. We arrived at the station with half an hour to spare before our 10:30 train. We discovered that it was cancelled without declared reason. Fortunately we were in time to take an earlier train which would take us on a round trip through the Swedish countryside, on a two-hour trip instead of the usual one-hour journey to Stockholm, and which would still get us to Stockholm an hour earlier than waiting for the next train. Yesterday we were once more on our way to Stockholm. The 8:15 commuter train is now more or less permanently cancelled so we had to take the earlier commuter train at 7:15. This consisted of the usual five coaches, but we nonetheless managed to get a seat. On the way home one of our alternative trains was cancelled. The one we opted for was delayed by half an hour. We could not leave the platform in seven degrees below zero in case the delayed train came earlier than expected. Other trains that we saw were delayed by up to a hour. Today our son came on a visit on the same train. It was again delayed, this time by only twenty minutes.

This whole sorry story is a repeat of the situation last winter, after which the officers of the railway corporation promised to make sure that nothing of the sort happened again.  Twelve months later we are there again.

What is going on with this so important societal communications system? The officers of the company have now blamed a lack of resources which has resulted in poor maintenance of track and rolling stock for many years. Recently the national corporation was divided up into two, one part to take care of the track, the other of rolling stock, a part of a plan to open up the national corporation to competition from other operators of rolling stock.

Both parts, the corporation in charge of track and that in charge of rolling stock have long seen their board used as a retirement home for deposed politicians who, notwithstanding the best pension system in the country, apparently cannot manage without a number of cushy board fees to augment their income. What do these people know about running a railway system? The only thing they have learnt during a professional political career is how to please the PIP.

I have a suggestion: by all means pay the deposed politicians their board fee. By all means give them a room in the railway headquarters in which to meet and drink coffee and make important decisions. Just don’t let them make decisions about the railway system. Or if they do, appoint one of the secretarial staff to see that these decisions are run through the shredder and do not filter down through the system. And do not allow them to communicate with the press about the railway system. No matter what they are paid, it will be cheaper to keep them out of mischief, and put the real power in the hands of railway professionals.

Unfortunately I am forced to seriously doubt the competence of the next layer in these enterprises as well, for the reasons below, so I would like to see them put on six months’ probation. That way there is time to dispense with them before next winter if they show no signs of being able to cope.

Why, for example, when a commuter train is cancelled, are the coaches which would have made up that train not shared out to the two nearest trains? This is not rocket science. If each train holds, say, 1000 people and one train is cancelled, that means that up to 1000 people must be accommodated on other trains, Let us assume these 1000 divide themselves equally, then the train before the cancelled one and the train after will each be carrying up to 1500 people in accommodation designed for 1000. Even more important, the cancelled train was conveying not just passengers, but coaches intended to form a return train later in the day. If these coaches do not travel to their destination, some train in the reverse direction must be cancelled. Which means that two other trains designed for 1000 passengers will each be carrying 1500 passengers home.

Why is it impossible, with the electricity supply running overhead, to install some system of warming for points which will keep them free of ice. It only has to be turned on when the temperature becomes seriously lower than freezing point?

Why, in the age of information technology, is it so hard to keep the customer in the dark about what is going on? What is so hard about putting more than the word “Delayed” on the arrivals and departures display? Why can the same information – or even more – not be relayed over the loudspeaker system? Why is it impossible to do a deal with all the caterers in the station building that a valid ticket is good for one cup of coffee and a sandwich or equivalent every hour?

Why has an enterprise which is dependent upon both a functioning track and signal system and functioning rolling stock been divided up into two? It doesn’t take a genius to see that the part which is responsible for rolling stock loses all control over the track. Unless, of course, there are serious penalties for a non-functional track and signal system, which kick in from the first minutes.

I would like the PIP to reconsider some of their decisions over the past few years, including reversing some of them if necessary, with the thought that the railway system is intended to provide reliable communication for the citizens of the country, and for goods transport, and with the aim of providing a service which can compete with that of Switzerland for being the best and most reliable in the world.

© James Wilde 2015