The mud-slinging is very much the norm in our current rail set up but many people here probably recongise that, at heart, it doesn't get us very far. When something goes wrong, on the scale of the 2018 meltdown, the public and the politicians see the rail industry
as a whole failing, and are simply uninterested in the intra-mural point scoring. They want the industry parties themselves to sort things out, properly. Ideally, ahead of time.... !
The reality here is that on the East Coast there has,
for many years, been serial inability by the whole industry to face up to tradeoffs between the various plans and the reality of what can be done. The view that NR serves its own interest, a proposition that since it is highly regulated one can debate, doesn't help make progress. The strategy of getting a mention in the Budget Speech is a new one but the specifics seem unclear and, in any case, cannot overule the current formal timetable processes.
Examples that immediately come to mind:
- signing up to the IEP fleet and contract, on the expectation that there should be 3tph to NCL and possibly even 4 hour journey times to Edinburgh to produce the revenue to help pay for the fleet expansion beyond the HSTs and 225s,
- Werrington, memorably described by one wag as the 'underpass to nowhere', which created a bypass route for Freight via Lincoln with little support from the FOCs or, indeed, from the City Fathers of that city itself (level crossings, anyone?). It remains ... er ... somewhat underused.
- TfN's aspiration for better links between Manchester and NCL, via Leeds, which challenged the unwritten view that 'London trains have priority North of York'. (Leeds-Newcastle today hardly feels a route, given TPE problems, reliance on connections at York and lack of obvious regular clockface timings other than in the middle of the day)
- upgrades of power and infrastructure between York and Edinburgh, designed with a service pattern in mind but without the ability for it to happen and then descoped. Still, the power supply upgrade is good future-proofing given net zero,
- King's Cross upgrade, extra Peterborough platforms and Digital Railway, similarly. These brought more capacity, but was this there to expand open access, LNER, TSGN, freight or simply to provide a performance buffer (no bad thing, of course)? And how did they fit with the plan for the rest of the route?
- the inital stages of TRU upgrade from Leeds to York, when there is likely to be insufficient turnround capacity at York or ability to merge TPE trains in with LNER and XC North of York?
- COVID demand on commuter routes, not just London but also into Leeds and Newcastle. If commuter demand is permanently lower, perhaps some of the capacity South of Peterborough could/should be used for other purposes?
- capacity for TPE, NT and XC between Doncaster and Sheffield, eg moving all XC to go via Doncaster. This section heavily constrains XC and South Transpennine today
- adding stations in Scotland, without fully considering how all-day services to them are to be provided alongside everything else (one might add the Blythe reopening, although its effect on the main line is much smaller).
- at various times, implicitly anticipating a downgrade in the number of direct Londons for Northallerton, Darlington, Durham, Alnmouth and Berwick, in favour of connections at York/Berwick, without mentioning this explicitly to their passengers/political representatives,
- wanting to grow freight whilst continuing to erode the possible end-to-end Class 4 paths that can feasibly be created to help realise this.
and so on.
One could argue about whether NR, NR's route, DfT or the individual operators should have done more/less. But something has to change. And that has to happen before the Williams-Shapps report is implemented, however that happens. (Technically, there was not a clear enough agreement on the core proposition (trains per hour, timings) when the ESG process began (but wasn't that back in 2012 or so, when the IEPs were committed ...?)
Perhaps what's needed now is some Kissinger-style shuttle-diplomacy between
everyone involved, operators, infrastructure manager, funders and TfN, to see if a route through this can be found
in short order for December. That will almost certainly mean one or more of the aspirations for the route being parked for now. If not Dec 24, then at least Dec 25. If the main components of a timetable structure (including links across the Pennines and to South Yorks) can be resolved by eg. this November, then there's a chance that MK can turn it into the Dec 25 timetable. But the main components need to be resolved first: neither the ESG (haven't they been place for over a decade?) or MK can do that on their own.
The lesson is surely, as per other posts upthread, that one should start with the services to be provided, including open access, and then figure out the infrastructure needed to make them happen. This is not only logical
but also helps save abortive investment cost (see eg Bletchley flyover, until its most recent resurrection, Carlisle yards)
.
