Rail: ‘This is where we are, but it is definitely not where anybody wants to be’

Sign up to Simon Calder’s free travel email for expert advice and money-saving discounts Get Simon Calder’s Travel email Get Simon Calder’s Travel email SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. What you want is for people to think, ‘How do we get this fixed?’ “This railway has to get into the habit of saying, ‘This is our problem, and we fix it’.” Lord Hendy had been summoned by committee chair Ruth Cadbury to explain progress in the government’s plan to establish Great British Railways – a single body bringing together track and train. “This is where we are, but it is definitely not where anybody wants to be.” Lord Hendy blamed “30 years of balkanisation” for a system in which private train operators are instructed by the Department for Transport which trains they must run on track that is owned and operated by Network Rail. Under GBR, he said: “I want to see somebody who believes when they wake up in the morning that it is their job to fix it, and that they don’t have to enter a meeting with 30 people and look at 400-page contracts to work out what you do when things go wrong, but that they have the power to make the railway service better for the people on the ground this morning, this evening and tomorrow morning.” With taxpayers pumping £400 per minute to keep the railways on life support, the DfT is certain to take an interest. “Passengers deserve to have better, sooner.” Simon Calder, also known as The Man Who Pays His Way, has been writing about travel for The Independent since 1994.