I have tried to avoid being in the “I told you so” club but really when I read the opening submissions to Lord Cullen’s inquiry and note that Railtrack and others are beginning to say that the way the industry was fragmented at privatisation has made safety more difficult to manage, I cannot resist reminding Railwatch readers that I and others in RDS have consistently given similar warnings for over five years now.
On television, radio and at public meetings I have been repeatedly told I was a scaremonger and that it was safer than under BR. No one listened then. Are they listening now?
My worry is that although the major players sit up and beg in front of Mr Prescott at his seminars on safety, once that is over they all then seem to me to retreat behind their teams of lawyers and begin again to defend their own position regardless of the common good.
The money spent by these massive organisations on adversarial legal actions and on “spin doctoring” in massive public affairs organisations would alone allow a sensible start on tackling the now acknowledged faults in the industry.
Contrast the resources spent on public relations with the number of staff on stations to combat trespass and vandalism.
The latest press release I read before I started this Railwatch article announced: “We are going to have a nationwide standard for train driver training”.
“Wow,” I thought, “what a good idea, perhaps they will soon start to reinvent the wheel.”
So we really have to kill over 30 people and maim many others before common sense returns to an industry that prided itself on its safety?
Train driving has been highlighted but of course may have nothing to do with the cause of the accident itself. That is for Lord Cullen to determine. Deciding whether it was part of the cause of the accident or not, should not prevent Lord Cullen from making recommendations on driver training. Sir Anthony Hidden in the Clapham accident inquiry made major recommendations on automatic train protection although ATP would not have prevented Clapham. It would however have prevented almost all the other bad accidents we have experienced since.
Not that the recommendation on ATP did us much good, since nothing came of it and the government of the day did not even include its provision in any of the franchises in the privatisation process!
No, I’m afraid we have to look back not just at the way the industry was privatised but also very carefully at the financial calculations that managed to prove, to their satisfaction, that ATP was not value for money.
I for one look forward to that debate and the various calculations having to stand the “fierce light that beats upon tragedy and death”.
All in all, as the Ladbroke Grove inquiry unfolds, we shall see exactly how bad the illness is, and whether it is curable without major surgery.
I have never suggested re-nationalisation, but now I am firmly of the view that safety, whether in the air, on the railway, on the roads or at sea is a government responsibility.
In today’s society we are beginning to understand that to blame an individual fails to address the real cause. It has taken over 50 years to my knowledge for it to become acceptable that when a driver passes a signal at red that that is the beginning, not the end of the investigation.
To quote the Health and Safety Executive document on safety “Attributing accidents to human error has often been seen as a sufficient explanation in itself which is beyond the control of managers. This view is no longer acceptable.”
I refuse to be reassured by all the PR hype and even the foreword in the Railtrack group safety plan, which says: “We all need to show we are united in working to restore public confidence in the safety performance of the railway”
Companies still fail to accept responsibilities openly and respond in a defensive legal way to any challenge. Also I am not impressed by the constant trumpeting of good news which is usually merely putting back something which should not have been taken away in the first place.
To end on a cheerful note, I am glad to hear that no longer is the Railtrack share price the first item on the daily log, which is perhaps a sign that safety and operational matters are also important.
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