We must reimagine the future of the railway to help it succeed
For more than a century, and thanks to the rise of the internal combustion engine, Britain’s railways have been in an almost constant state of decline. While inflation rages and wage costs soar, Network Rail can only hold its spending on maintenance at a constant cash level; it means real terms investment spending on the existing system, leaving aside HS2 and other major prestige projects, will fall over the course of the decade. Network Rail, the state-owned enterprise that looks after the rails, cables, signals, points, and many stations, appears convinced it can still run a safe railway; but it Such is the scale of the challenges facing the modern railways. Yet much of the railway, infrastructure and operating services are already state-owned and the private operators have much of their fare structure and timetables regulated by the state. Mick Lynch and his RMT colleagues would still enjoy the right to strike, even if it was the people’s railway they were bringing to a standstill.
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