Chris Grayling announces plan to bring death back to our railways
![Network Rail owns Britain’s railway tracks. When they were privately owned by Railtrack, there were several fatal crashes [Image: Jonathan Brady/PA].](https://voxpoliticalonline.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/161206-Network-Rail.png)
Network Rail owns Britain’s railway tracks. When they were privately owned by Railtrack, there were several fatal crashes [Image: Jonathan Brady/PA].
But company bosses need not worry – Transport Secretary Chris Grayling has already ensured that nobody will be able to bring court cases against them if the worst happens, because he already made justice too expensive during his time as Lord Chancellor.
No doubt Mr Grayling is already preparing his excuses – he is, after all, the man who accused unemployed people of being scroungers after he scrounged more than £100,000 in expenses for a London flat, despite having a family home nearby.
He is already claiming that putting the new Oxford-to-Cambridge rail route in completely private hands is not a prelude to fully privatising the rail network, even though that is exactly how it appears.
And how well did that work last time?
The rail network – track, signalling, tunnels, bridges, level crossings and all but a handful of the stations – passed into the hands of a company called Railtrack for a period between 1994, when rail privatisation took place, and 2002.
We all learned very quickly that privatising the infrastructure meant the company concerned would rather forego its duty to improve the system in favour of trying to turn a profit.
Serious shortcomings were identified, there were fatal crashes at Southall and Ladbroke Grove, and then the Hatfield crash of 2000 – a metal fatigue-induced derailment that killed four people and injured 70 – exposed the extent to which the rail network had been allowed to fall into disrepair.
Railtrack had absolutely no idea how many more Hatfields were waiting to happen on its sorely-neglected stock. and after the public organisation Network Rail took over, it has been estimated that repair work cost £580 million.
Now Mr Grayling thinks we have all forgotten the darkest days of the UK’s railways.
He should think again.
But this bonehead is so stupid, another fatal accident will probably happen before he does.
The government has unveiled plans for a fully privatised railway line, with track and trains operated by the same company.
A new route linking Oxford and Cambridge will not be developed by Network Rail, the owner of Britain’s rail infrastructure. Instead, a new entity will be responsible for track and infrastructure, as well as operating train services, under proposals drawn up by the transport secretary, Chris Grayling.
In a keynote speech on Tuesday, Grayling will outline how the government plans to reunite the operation of tracks and trains, which are currently the respective responsibility of publicly owned Network Rail and private train operating companies (TOCs).
While officials at the Department for Transport have disputed reports that Grayling is seeking more immediate challenges to Network Rail, unions pledged to fight the proposed changes.
The RMT union said Grayling’s rail plans would recreate privatisation chaos that it claims he introduced in the prison system as justice secretary.
Grayling denied he was intent on privatisation. “I don’t intend to sell off the existing rail network. I don’t intend to privatise Network Rail again,” he told Today. He said the Oxford and Cambridge rail link would be developed by a separate company outside Network Rail in the same way that the Crossrail link had been developed in London.
Source: Chris Grayling to unveil plans for new fully privatised railway line | UK news | The Guardian
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hmm but how can we have a privitised railway when the public pays for the tracks it runs on isnt this a farce if it was truly private then it would pay for the tracks and all
That is the plan.
Then the tracks get metal fatigue through lack of investment by profit-hungry corporate owners.
Then there’s an accident like Hatfield and people die.
Then the infrastructure gets nationalised and you pay for the repairs. The corporate shareholders get off, free as a bird.
That’s right Mike, and if I remember correctly Network Rail picked up all compensation payments awarded by the courts for actions taken by passengers and others against Railtrack?
Railtrack – a company which in the last few months of its life pleaded poverty and was bailed out with £130 million from the government which it immediately paid out in dividends to its shareholders.
Thank you for this information Mike, I have letters from Grayling in his capacity as Work and Pensions secretary , assuring me that his Department took fraud very seriously and my fears regarding A4E and others were totally unfounded and I had nothing to worry about, the very next day the police raided the offices of A4E in Slough.
The Man is a Joke and totally unfit for public service.
These Tory s**ts are nothing more than PURE EVIL.
Stop swearing, please. I’m getting tired of editing your profanities and may resort to deleting the whole comment in future.
Apart from the general worries over creeping privatisation, another aspect of this particular case – the development of the resurrected Oxford-Cambridge line -, is the matter of creating a new entity to do the job. This effectively weakens Network Rail, and makes future ideas of privatisation easier to bring into the discussion. In a serious country, NR would have the resources to manage all rail infrastructure development, thus enabling the clarity and simplicity of management Grayling claims to want.
Grayling denied he was intent on privatisation. “I don’t intend to sell off the existing rail network. I don’t intend to privatise Network Rail again,” he told Today.
Mark his words…..
The usual Tory mantra – if they can’t make money for themselves or their odious friends then they aren’t interested.
Grayling is a Joke, when he headed the Department of Work and Pensions , he wrote to me saying how seriously his Department took the issue of fraud within its contractors or providers as the Department prefers to call them, apparently my fears were totally unfounded and I had nothing to worry about, the very next day Thames Valley Police raided the offices of A4E in Slough , Reading and Oxford.