Breaking up network rail

[V8 Fettler]

Politicians need to decide whether to micro-manage the railways or manage at arm's length, they currently drift between one or the other.

[hidetheelephants]

CrutyRammers said:

I'm only going from what I heard on the radio, but isn't the proposal to set up joint boards between the TOCs and NR to reduce the "us and them" split between them, rather than to "give responsibility for infrastructure to the TOCs" ?
There is something to be said for getting people to work more closely together rather than sitting back and blaming each other.

gooner1 said:

Am I right in saying a similar practice to the one Grayling is proposing, is already operating in Scotland, between Abellio and NR? How is that panning out?

Some articles about this imply that the policy is inspired by the closer relationship between the Scotrail franchisee and NR, but given that Scotrail has been a rolling clusterfk since the cloggies took over from the bus people it's hardly a good advert for the policy.

[GTO-3R]

Rick101 said:

I work in a NR Control Centre. I work for NR however my access lanyard clearly displays Virgin Trains and Northern branding as it's a shared building. it's not just the building we share, we are all situated in the same office. Not different area, but right next to each other. I couldn't have a conversation with a NR colleague without a TOC colleague being party to it. We are close enough to touch without leaving our seats. We share conversation, jokes, know each other as friends and many are family. We share food, drinks and have spent many nights putting the world to rights. You could not get a closer working relationship if your tried.

I appreciate this change is 'bigger' that just my office but the reality is those that work on 'The Railway' do just that. the name on the back of the jacket changes regularly, what doesn't change is the that we all want it to work as best as it possibly can, regardless of what colours you are wearing that week.

All changing the management will do is take safety related decisions away from the person whose sole role is safety and put it in the hands of a privatized company with profits in mind.

Edited by Rick101 on Thursday 8th December 10:13

The ROC at Ashburys?

I'm a Signalling Engineer based in Manchester