CBE for Boss of Network Rail

[sinkov]

People around here are in despair. Go to any local railway station and a line of buses is in place to ferry passengers who have paid for a train ticket.

BT, it is a disgrace, a complete and utter shambles, but I find the blame and criticism being directed towards Mark Carne, Network Rail and Northern, while justified and deserved to a certain extent, is a bit like Sterling's tattoo and gun crime, it's deflecting attention away from the real culprit, which is the dysfunctional privatised rail system.

No need to go into the reasons, we both know why it doesn't work, why it can't work, but while we continue with this system these disasters will continue, they are products of the system, they cannot be avoided. I feel for the poor bloody employees, trying to provide a service to the public, but being prevented by the system they're trapped into from being able to do just that. It's a bit like owning a horse good enough to win the Derby, insisting the trainer runs it with a bag of cement strapped on it's back, and then moaning about the trainer when it comes in last.

[oldcolner]

If you read more about the Honours system you will see it has been deliberately opened up to the public fairly recently to make nominations and to better reflect public service.
I’m not saying it’s perfect, but Carne has not been given a peerage or become an MP so Thorpe issues are well off the mark.
For bedtime reading or nominating someone
https://www.gov.uk/honours

[oldcolner]

But Network Rail is a public company

[sinkov]

If you read more about the Honours system you will see it has been deliberately opened up to the public fairly recently to make nominations and to better reflect public service.
I’m not saying it’s perfect, but Carne has not been given a peerage or become an MP so Thorpe issues are well off the mark.
For bedtime reading or nominating someone
https://www.gov.uk/honours

They're not stupid, the Establishment OC, of course they want us to feel included, of course we can be involved in some small way, of course we can have some crumbs off the table. If you're happy to know your place and accept your lot, and think everything is for the best, in the best of all possible worlds, then fine, I would not wish to disillusion you.

In the meantime, if you still doubt that the Thorpe cover-up and the corrupt Honours system, which allows the rich and privileged to benefit at our expense are not even remotely connected, then you won't be interested in the disgraceful Stefan Kiszko case either, in which another innocent man had to spend years in jail to protect the reputation of Clitheroe MP David Waddington, who had become Home Secretary. The Establishment run the Honours system on the same lines, Us and Them.

[sinkov]

But Network Rail is a public company

Whether Network Rail is a private or public company is irrelevant, it may well be that it carries out it's duties as well and efficiently as it possibly can. The problem, as I said earlier, is the system under which it operates, being forced to act independently from the various companies running the train services. There is a dis-connect which is always going to be problematic.

[The Bedlington Terrier]

I must have taken Virgin Rail from Manchester Piccadilly or Wigan to Euston a hundred times in the last three years and never once had a problem.

Reasonable fares, bob on punctuality but our local services operated by Northern Rail are a total shambles. Everyone around here says the same, it's not spasmodic, it's constant and it is horrendous. This is 2018 for God's sake! Knighthood? I'd give this fcuking clown a visit to the room of pain. Dilly, dilly.

[oldcolner]

Whether Network Rail is a private or public company is irrelevant, it may well be that it carries out it's duties as well and efficiently as it possibly can. The problem, as I said earlier, is the system under which it operates, being forced to act independently from the various companies running the train services. There is a dis-connect which is always going to be problematic.

But Sinkov this guy only deals with Network Rail issues. He works with the providers and yes the new timetable was a cock up. Why are Northern the only ones to totally mess up? That doesn’t mean many other things he did were the same.

Do you really remember the good old days of nationalised British Rail. Under invested, old dirty and smelly stock, regular crashes and deaths, Victorian infrastructure and strikes lots of them drivers one day, guards the next. Passenger numbers falling freight being lost. Trains on different gauges. That was really well planned and executed.

[oldcolner]

I must have taken Virgin Rail from Manchester Piccadilly or Wigan to Euston a hundred times in the last three years and never once had a problem.

Reasonable fares, bob on punctuality but our local services operated by Northern Rail are a total shambles. Everyone around here says the same, it's not spasmodic, it's constant and it is horrendous. This is 2018 for God's sake! Knighthood? I'd give this fcuking clown a visit to the room of pain. Dilly, dilly.

My daughter shared your pain with no drivers available to run trains from Preston to Blackpool so a bus. That’s not this guys fault though.
He has only been given a CBE not a knighthood. Don’t let facts get in the way of your argument though. The problem looks to be that northern runs across two separate regions, but Northern seem to be shambolic.

[sinkov]

But Sinkov this guy only deals with Network Rail issues. He works with the providers and yes the new timetable was a cock up. Why are Northern the only ones to totally mess up? That doesn’t mean many other things he did were the same.

Do you really remember the good old days of nationalised British Rail. Under invested, old dirty and smelly stock, regular crashes and deaths, Victorian infrastructure and strikes lots of them drivers one day, guards the next. Passenger numbers falling freight being lost. Trains on different gauges. That was really well planned and executed.

I remember them well OC, I worked for British Rail for five years in the 60s, and I don't recognise the organisation you're describing.

Not the fault of British Rail if the government of the day was so shortsighted they wouldn't invest in the rail infrastucture. They're having to subsidise the private companies now, so what's the point of privatisation ?

There was modern and clean stock as well, but steam engines are by their nature noisy, dirty, smelly machines, but that wasn't the fault of British Rail. And as you point out, British Rail was underfunded, so the replacement of old stock was always a fraught process.

There were vastly more trains running when I was working for British Rail in the 60s, the safety record was pretty good, given the huge number of trains they were running and the millions of passengers carried. Due to the vastly reduced amount of traffic and modern signalling techniques the safety record today is superb, but nothing to do with privatisation. Trying to claim that rail travel was inherently unsafe or dangerous under British Rail is simply re-writing history, it wasn't.

I don't recall a single day's strike while I was working for British rail, but there were strikes all over the place in the 60s and 70s, I don't think the railways were any worse affected than other industries. In the last couple of years on our wonderful privatised system there have been strikes by employees of Southern, Arriva Cross Country, Eurostar, Greater Anglia, MerseyRail, ScotRail, First Great Western and Virgin East Coast, possibly others I've missed. Maybe they should employ some old British rail managers to advise them on industrial relations ?

Of course passenger numbers were falling and freight traffic lost, more affluence meant more people could afford cars, and a motorway network was being built. The railway system was in decline, that's why Beeching shut half of it down, it was just progress, in the same way that the Railways brought about a decline in a once flourishing Canal system, road transport was seeing off the Railways. But not the fault of British Rail, there was very little they could do about it.

Trains on different gauges ? Are you serious OC ? As far as I'm aware the last Broad Gauge train ran in 1892, it's been Standard Gauge ever since.

And it's not just Northern with problems, Thameslink, Southern, Great Northern and Gatwick Express have all experienced chaos as a result of the new timetables.

[sinkov]

He has only been given a CBE not a knighthood.

But why has he been given a CBE by the Establishment OC ? He was a paid employee of Network Rail, he got well paid for doing his job, did he work a lot of overtime or something, is it for helping old ladies across the street, or is it the Establishment looking after one of their own again ?