An excellent episode on Railnatter last night on the complexity of the UK rail network in England, Wales, and Scotland. Important to note is that a lot of this complexity is inherent to the system, but as inferred to in the video there may be some scope to simplify some parts by reducing the overall number of separate organisations and bringing certain things ‘in-house’ that are presently contracted out.
A fascinating watch and some great information on both obvious and obscure job roles on the railway network, train drivers are an obvious example, but perhaps being a railway chef wouldn’t spring immediately to mind?
In my own limited experience of operations on a heritage railway, the complexity of running just one train on one line on a single day is easy to see, numbers in brackets refer to job role numbers.
In the main, this was volunteer labour, but the only real difference between a volunteer and a paid employee in a safety critical context is the absence of a financial payment for their time, everything else is identical in terms of standards of work expected.
Operarions Management: Duty Officer (1), Person In Charge of Incidents (2).
Train crew: Driver (3), Fireman (4), and Guard (4).
Signalling: Signaller (5), Crossing Keeper (6).
So to just operate one train on the railway for a day needed six operational staff at a minimum; and more trains would mean more train crews needing rostered, so a two train day would jump to 9 staff and so on.
All of the above is underpinned by other staff, an obvious example being staff in the shops who sell tickets alongside tea and cake (arguably just as important as coal and water for the loco!), so perhaps another four staff can be added just on the ‘commercial’ element, taking the total to 10 people to operate just one train calling at two staffed stations on one day.
All of the above is further supported by other teams of people; the people who maintain the locomotives and carriages, the track, the signalling system, the fabric of the buildings themselves, then there are those who sort out orders for things as diverse as coal, cake, tea, track components, cleaning cloths, oil, toys, books and much more besides, then all the records being maintained, accounts being compiled and much more, then there are specialist contractors who’d be organised to do certain jobs such as welding inside of boilers.
In my decade or so of volunteering, I’ve operated a level crossing, been a passenger train guard, operated a signalbox, but also been under locos, carriages, and waggons undertaking repairs, as well as occasional stints serving tea and coffee; just one a very large team of people helping get trains out and steaming along a short heritage line, and an interesting insight into the impressive effort of keeping a heritage line going.
For the paying passenger, all of this relatively massive complexity isn’t seen; they walk across to a quaint station building, buy a ticket, and a cup of tea, and wait until the train rolls into the platform, the guard opens the doors and they board the train, the doors slam shut, the whistle goes and away they trundle.
While the ‘big railway’ is obviously quite different in how it operates, there is a much greater scale; thousands of trains working to intensive timetables around the clock at speeds of up to and perhaps beyond 125mph, needing hundreds of signallers, thousands of train crew and many more to operate major stations.
A part that perhaps is omitted from the structure outlined by Gareth Dennis in his Railnatter episode above is the role played by myself and others as campaigners who are lobbying for improved rail services; in the case of this campaign for a totally new rail route to be established to better connect the Northumberland Coast overall, while others like CRAG (Chathill Rail Action Group) campaign for better rail services at a single station, some like SENRUG and the Campaign for Borders Rail (CBR) have had great success in seeing whole lines reopened to passengers, and in the case of the Borders Railway, one revived from total closure.
These groups will largely act through other bodies such as Northumberland County Council (local authorities), or devolved transport organistions to see their wishes for better rail services hopefully implemented.
Again a very interesting video from Gareth Dennis and his Railnatter series to look at the underlying structure of the rail industry and hopefully bring about more understanding of it.
Some key takeaways:
1. Railways need to be internally better integrated: more in-house employment of staff such as cleaners to allow easier career progression (i.e. cleaner > guard > driver > management)
2. Railways are part of broader sustainable transport: integration with other modes such as Metro, buses, ferries, active travel, and more as part of a holistic system is a key part of the thinking, not just as a single mode of transport in isolation.
3. Sustainable transport needs to be politically integrated at all levels, some parts of the system should be much more locally devolved where appropriate (i.e. Nexus might have more control of rail/buses/other public transport at a local level than they do currently.
The Northumberland Coast Loop 