Why Britain is on the wrong track

THEY had been waiting for this day since December 16. Angry and frustrated commuters were given one last morning of transport hell on Monday before they finally got back their train service between York and Leeds.

For many, the delayed re-opening of the station following a £165m 'remodelling' was just another example of the bureaucratic incompetence that has damaged the reputation of rail as a fast and efficient form of transport in the UK, possibly for good.

Train operators did their best during the closure of the station by Railtrack to keep disruption to a minimum, with buses laid on in place of the cancelled trains to ferry passengers to their destinations.

But as transport expert Jonathan Tyler points out, if you're travelling by train you don't get stuck at traffic lights, you don't get stuck behind bad drivers and you don't get caught up in rush-hour traffic. And train drivers don't get lost between York and Leeds.

Mr Tyler, 60, a former British Rail worker turned independent transport consultant, says the delays in the Leeds Station project were 'absolutely appalling'.

Although comparatively philosophical about the inconvenience he himself experienced, he says he does intend to seek compensation - although because of the bureaucratic mess that the management of our railways has become, he's not confident of receiving any.

"If I want my money back for the delays, then I had better write to Northern Spirit," he says.

"But then I know it is not their fault. Railtrack have claimed responsibility, so Railtrack will have to compensate Northern Spirit who will have to compensate me.

"Efficient? I don't think it is. Time and money that could be spent on the railways is being spent on bureaucracy. And this sort of problem is becoming endemic."

The bureaucracy that surrounds the claiming of compensation is typical of the larger problem that has overtaken our railways since privatisation, Mr Tyler says.

When new signalling at Brighton Station was commissioned in 1932, the work took just over six hours to complete.

"Leeds is more complex because there is overhead electrification and civil engineering," he admits. "But the work lasted to 15 January and that is 120 times as long as Brighton."

Much of the escalation in project-time in recent years is attributable to much tighter - Mr Tyler would say 'over the top' - safety regulations.

The former British Rail researcher, who now lectures on transport issues, insists that a lot of the problems are also related to the new bureaucratic structures in place to manage our railways.

A bureaucratic organisation can always, of course, find excuses for why something is not done on time.

The official explanation for what happened at Leeds came from Robin Gisby, director of Railtrack London North Eastern.

"Operational and technical difficulties coupled with a lack of proper resourcing by the contractors has led to the problems, which were made worse by a short period of bad weather," he said.

But for Mr Tyler, the problems faced by our railways go much deeper than operational and technical difficulties and bad weather.

The layered bureaucracy and use of contractors and sub-contractors is directly responsible for the culture of confusion that is hitting Britain's railway network, he believes.

"A lot has changed since privatisation and the days of BR," he says. "I am pleased that Railtrack have now admitted that some of the problems stemmed from the use of contractors. No project could be so devastated by the weather. But will they learn their lesson for future works?"

He claims that the use of eight contractors and the more than 20 sub-contractors on the Leeds project left it lacking direction. "How can disparate bodies pull together with the common cause of getting the work done as quickly as possible and giving the railway back to the people?" he asks.

"Each company has its own set of commercial goals, it has its own workers trained in its own way, and has its contractual obligations in place.

"Some employ former British Rail workers and others young graduates and it is a very fragmented and disparate process."

He cites the remodelling of Liverpool Street Station as the perfect example of how British Rail, as a single entity, used to work efficiently.

The use of a York-based BR architect, not a contracted one, to design the impressive station shows how well things used to work when only one company, with a single aim, was in charge of such a project, he claims.

"Something needs to change," he says. "There has to be a new chain of command at Railtrack, things need to be done in a different way.

"The Hatfield crash set Railtrack a huge test, and whether or not they have passed is a matter of opinion.

"The Leeds Station project has been a marked failure but, as someone very interested in transport and transport solutions, I hope the situation can be remedied for the future.

"The infrastructure of the railways needs improving and the lessons that should have been learnt from what has gone on here could help future projects run to plan."

With all that has gone on, Mr Tyler has concerns for the future of rail travel in the UK.

"Making fun of railway timetables has been a British pastime since their beginning," he says. "They have been portrayed as expressions of hope rather than reality, as guidebooks to dis-connections at junctions, and as too complex for any ordinary mortal to understand."

But in the rest of Europe, especially in Switzerland and The Netherlands, the railway timetable is not a national joke, he says.

To get things back on track here doesn't necessarily involve re-nationalisation, he says. But he is keen to see a re-organisation in which chains of command are clearer, projects are better managed with commercial interests put to one side and the railways are run more as a national institution than a business.

Even with all its faults, there are many reasons why rail remains a vital and efficient means of transport, he insists. They include:

- Railways need less space than roads for a given task, which matters in a crowded island.

- Their contribution to noise, air and visual pollution is generally modest.

- Trains can offer greater comfort, at higher speeds, for more people, than can road coaches.

- Signalled railway trains are inherently safer than individually-controlled motor vehicles.

- One heavy freight train can do the job of many lorries.

So while he may be a critic of the way our railways are managed, he will always be a rail man at heart. "It would be folly to abandon a national asset unless we were sure it had outlived its usefulness," he says passionately.

Delays and frustrations notwithstanding, most of the country's long-suffering rail passengers would probably agree with that.