TPE loses contract

[MidlandRed]

On 19/05/2023 at 18:16, The Stationmaster said:

There have been instances where DafT have effectively instructed operators under the present contractual arrangemnts to reduce the length of trains.   Whether the overcrowding statistics introduced - as you said - to monitor short formed/overcrowded services will get so much attention in future is an interesting question.

 

The level of Civil Service interference is now massively greater when the railway was fully m nationalised although it did happen then (but was inevitably denied by politicians even when they were directly involved). IIn some cases change came about pre urely because of changes introduced by Cvil Servants (but I don't know at whose behest) for exanmolke teh considerable cutback in freight servoces in the late 1980s was a direct consequence of an instruction from The Treasury and included the ending of various services which were making an operating profit (many of them were subsequently reintrodiced by EWS so clearly they were quite happy that they were profitable).   But the cuts were ver ysquarely publicly identified as being 'BR policy' when they literally were not and various BR staff were told not to say what had caused them.

 

In my experience there is little to chose between teh different lots of politicians whe n it comes down to action rather yjam rhetoric.  There have been one or two who have had a pretty good understanding of the railway industry but one who back in the 1990s spent half a day shadowing me as part of a 'railway industry familiarisation' freely admitted, when I asked him, that he saw it as a route to certain posts in Govt because very few of his colleagues were either interested in or knew nothing about 'transport', especially the railway.   However when he did get various ministerial jobs he never had one in transport so clearly his strategy hadn't been absolutely necessary.  Nice chap tho' and seemingly quite competent in the jobs he did get.

Having also dealt with politicians on transport matters over many decades (but not in rail) I would tend to agree - however the standard is often variable and I can think of some (including quite recent) who have/do get it, but also some that simply don’t. However what changes is the overall political climate and one party has a totally different set of emphases than the other. We appear to have entered a period of budget cutting after the dire need, following the debacle last autumn, to set public spending and capital budgets to calm the markets, resulting in many difficult ‘ceilings’ - so the desperation-like alterations to the plans for HS2, unrealistic capping of increases for public sector workers are all part of the malaise - along with booting expenditure on promised (but not budget allocated) hospitals even further down the road….. I would agree that in such a period any political party’s outlook and dealing with civil servants and others in likely to be similar.

 

The area I still fail to understand is the employment of ‘political advisors’, funded as part of the civil service as I understand, but from observation these people, of whom there are quite a number around Government, may claim to be subject area specialists but totally politicised. From my observation, it’s entirely possible for these people to talk even more nonsense than some of the politicians who employ them!!! 🙄 they are also liable to get in the way of proper advice from professionals. 

[Michael Hodgson]

1 hour ago, MidlandRed said:

Having also dealt with politicians on transport matters over many decades (but not in rail) I would tend to agree - however the standard is often variable and I can think of some (including quite recent) who have/do get it, but also some that simply don’t. However what changes is the overall political climate and one party has a totally different set of emphases than the other.

 

The problem is the greasy pole.  Transport Ministers don't really want the job. 

They tend to see it as a stepping stone to the post they really want. 

 

Far be it from me to feel sorry for a prime minister, but he has to fill the post and that's not as easy it might sound.  He's got to choose from a couple of hundred Hon. members in his own party, the most talented of whom he will want to put in the other "great offices of state", and he's constrained by the internal squabbles between factions within the party because the Cabinet all have to sing from the same hymn sheet.  You want a Tory MP who not only belongs to the appropriate wing of the party and won't argue with you in public but also knows what a bus or train is ?  And if that sounds difficult, put yourself in the shoes of a potential Labour PM.

 

[Oldddudders]

Back in the mid-90s, I was working with a boss/client - on BRIS Restructuring and then Privatisation - who had formerly been in the Policy Office at BRB. Before that he had been Area Civil Engineer at Preston, so knew a thing or two. When I expressed concern at the civil servants' involvement with Privatisation, he pointed out that bad as they were, they were rather better than having to deal with an elected MP.......

[The Stationmaster]

On 27/05/2023 at 23:13, Oldddudders said:

Back in the mid-90s, I was working with a boss/client - on BRIS Restructuring and then Privatisation - who had formerly been in the Policy Office at BRB. Before that he had been Area Civil Engineer at Preston, so knew a thing or two. When I expressed concern at the civil servants' involvement with Privatisation, he pointed out that bad as they were, they were rather better than having to deal with an elected MP.......

Oddly (or maybe not?) all the Civil Servants who attended the table top exercise which was set up to show how various things in privatisation might (or might not) work were pretty well tuned in and could see the various pitfalls and opportunities.  The best ones of all were from The treasury and they really understood what was supposed to happen under the legislation and how the money would work (but the politicos mucked that up by privatising Railtrack which ruined the financial model The Treasury had worked up)

 

Amazingly the same could not be said for some of the merchant bankers - wh would prsumably be doing things like Due doligence and advising important clients about ther investment and whether it was going to be good or bas.  Some were brilliant but many were distinctly under par.

 

The onesI saw ona later Due Diligence h job were similar - a couple pf them not only understood what thinsg interacted with what but actually asked some intelligently put together searching questions.  Some of their colleagues however simply had glazed over expressions all the time (but it was after lunch and they had been in receipt of considerable  'hospitality' on their way to the meeting.