BANK HOLIDAY RAIL STRIKE THREAT

By Alan Salter

THE TRAVEL plans of millions of train passengers could be thrown into chaos this Bank Holiday as the threat of a national strike is added to promised disruption on the West Coast Main Line.
More than 17,000 members of the RMT union at Network Rail are being balloted for industrial action in two separate disputes involving maintenance and signalling and other operational staff.
Ballot papers are being sent to more than 12,000 infrastructure workers after they rejected an “unacceptable” offer from the company on the harmonisation of terms and conditions by a landslide margin of more than 100 to one.
And 5,000 signallers and other key operational staff are being balloted over pay and conditions after rejecting the terms of a two-year deal.
Both ballots conclude on May 22 giving the possibility of a strike beginning in the days following the late May Bank Holiday when many people normally travel. By law, the union must give seven days notice and must take action within 28 days.
Keith Lumley, Network Rail’s spokesman in Manchester, admitted that a national strike would be serious but he said: “Not all signallers are members of the union and we do have qualified management who could be brought into work.
“We would do our best to keep as much of the railways open as possible but obviously, we hope it does not come to that.”
The ballot of signalling and other operational staff follows the rejection of a pay-and-conditions offer which they claim holds the prospect of a real-terms cut in living standards.
RMT general secretary Bob Crow said: “We told the company quite clearly that the second-year element of their pay offer to operational staff, of RPI plus 0.5 per cent, would not protect our members against costs that are rising way ahead of the official inflation rate.”
“Their cynical response was to offer another tenth of one per cent on the first year element on condition that we do not ballot, when they knew perfectly well that it would not address our concerns.”
The separate harmonisation dispute follows Network Rail’s decision to take all maintenance in house after the Hatfield disaster in 2000 when four people died on a train derailed by a broken rail.
The union says there have been “months of fruitless talks” aimed at achieving a single set of terms and conditions for maintenance staff, many of whom transferred from the private sector.
“The company has been using the talks to try to drive down our members' conditions, and they can hardly be surprised that their pathetic offer was thrown out by a margin of more than 100 to one,” said Mr Crow.
"The company is now saying that our members can stay on their existing terms, but they are already moving to sneak inferior conditions in through the back door with a list of issues it now wants to 'discuss' separately.
“We know that means an attack on everyone's terms and conditions, not least because the company is looking to cut its maintenance budget by up to 12 per cent year on year.”
Network Rail, however, says it has not made an offer and bosses want to continue talking.
The infrastructure company is already planning a summer of weekend closures of sections of the West Coast Main Line (WCML) in order to complete the work this year.
This follows the disruptive engineering overrun at New Year when NR failed to complete on time the Christmas holiday work at Rugby in the West Midlands - one of three new year engineering overruns which led to the Rail Regulator fining NR a record £14 million.

STANDING ROOM ONLY

By Alan Salter

Business leaders in Manchester and London have joined forces to protest to Transport Secretary Ruth Kelly about delays in solving overcrowding on Virgin’s tilting Pendolino trains to the capital.

The Greater Manchester Chamber has joined forces with the London Chamber of Commerce - together, they represent 8,000 businesses - to write to Bolton MP Mrs Kelly urging her department to reconsider its rejection of Virgin’s proposals to add100 extra seats to every Pendolino train on the West Coast Main Line by 2010.

Virgin wanted a two-year extension to its franchise, which is due to run out in 2012, in return for managing the project, which also involves building a complete new train to replace the one wrecked in last year’s Cumbrian crash, lengthening platforms at some stations along the route as well as maintenance depots.

But the DfT says that would not be value for money and has instead put the work out to tender, asking for the first new carriages to be supplied after 2012. Virgin says that if it had the job, it could start introducing them in 2010.

David McKeith, President of Greater Manchester Chamber of Commerce and senior partner at PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP in the North West, has written: “More than a third of the line’s 25 million passengers a year are business travellers, who use the peak time services which are most likely to be overcrowded.

“We share the operator’s concerns that the DfT’s decision could lead to passengers being forced to stand on 15 per cent of services on the WCML by 2012. This means a loss of productivity for businesses whose staff are unable to work en route.”

Virgin welcomed the Chambers’ support. A spokesman said: “Adding the extra carriages is much less straightforward than people think.

“We have not decided whether to bid for that contract but if it goes to a third party, it will make things a lot more complicated.”

Although the West Coast Main Line’s 1660 miles of track is used by 14 different operators, Virgin has by far the highest profile – and it has two thirds of the compensation paid by Network Rail to rain companies denied access by modernisation work. Between 2002 and 2006, the government handed over to Virgin £590m more than the original franchise had specified.

There WILL be trouble ahead......

EXCLUSIVE BY ALAN SALTER                              30/03/08 

DELAYS in the £8bn modernisation of the main line between Manchester and London is set to delay Virgin’s much-heralded introduction of three trains an hour between the two cities.

Network Rail has already been fined £14m by the Rail Regulator for throwing the Christmas travel plans of thousands of passengers into chaos with over-running work on the line at Rugby a few months ago. Now the train operator says the Network Rail plans for the rest of this year have ruined its hopes of providing an extra 5,000 seats a day on the route by running extra trains from December.

After the fiasco over Christmas when work to ease the rail bottleneck at Rugby, the Rail Regulator ordered bosses to consult with train companies over ways to avoid future problems while the work is finished.

The parties have until March 31 to lodge their preferred options and the regulator will decide. Virgin says that Network Rail’s preference to finish the job by December would mean launching the service and suspending it again just days later for a Christmas shutdown; a two-week shutdown in August and every Saturday in between May and September. I

t would also mean difficulties in training the extra drivers for the new services. Said a spokesman: “Faced with all this, we think the least bad option would be to delay the introduction until May so it has can go smoothly.

“Everybody from the top of the company to the people who drive the trains is bitterly disappointed because we have been planning for this for years.”

 Virgin has increased the number of passengers from 15.3 million in 2004/5 to 21.5 million in this financial year. Bosses saw the three trains an hour plan as the killer blow to the domestic airlines which compete on the route.

Whatever the decision, it will be claiming compensation from Network Rail and believes that the disruption will see an exodus of passengers to British Airways which will be flying into Heathrow’s new Terminal Five.

The news was greeted with dismay by businesses. Richard Critchley, Policy Manager for Transport at Greater Manchester Chamber of Commerce, said: “We’re very concerned about the potential for severe disruption which this work will cause to the West Coast Main Line. Manchester to London is a key service and any disruption will hurt the local economy and damage the reputation of the region.

“Travellers have already endured delays on this line when the Christmas improvement works overran. Now it looks like they will face months of disrupted services.

“Not only will the planned work cause massive inconvenience to travellers it will further undermine people’s confidence in our rail network. It is a fact that once people get out of the habit of using public transport, it’s very hard to get them back. We would urge Network Rail to think again and find a way of completing the improvement works which will cause less upheaval.”

 The Passenger Focus watchdog says it is disappointed by plans for more weekend closures and asks for fares to be cut “to compensate passengers for the inconvenience they will experience”.

It adds: “We also recommend that Season Ticket holders should get an automatic extension to cover every day in all periods when any part of the route they travel is closed.”

Network Rail said it would prefer to finish the work, as planned, by December.

Woodhead goes to the Commons

ByAlan Salter  06/03/2008
THE FATE of the Woodhead Tunnel underneath the Peak District is to be debated in parliament.
Blackley MP Graham Stringer launched the campaign to protect the rail route between Manchester and Sheffield and Transport Secretary Ruth Kelly promised to protect it.
And now Sheffield MP Angela Smith has secured an adjournment debate on “Woodhead rail route and options for its future” next week.
The move has delighted protesters who were removed from a railway station by police - and then given goody bags after visiting the transport secretary went outside to speak to them last week.
The campaigners have been asked to contribute to the consultation on a key government White Paper, “Transport Challenges” to develop a sustainable transport system.
The invitation was made by Bolton MP Ms Kelly herself after speaking with members of the ‘Save the Woodhead Tunnel’ group who were demonstrating at the opening of the refurbished Salford Central station.
After the transport secretary had left, the campaigners were given goody bags which had been handed out to passengers and VIPs to mark the occasion.
Greater Manchester Passenger Transport Authority, which funded most of the £5m work at Salford, is supporting the campaign against National Grid’s use of the tunnel as a cable run for trans-Pennine power cables which would make it difficult and expensive to reopen the former Woodhead railway route which closed almost three decades ago.
Jonathan Atkinson, one of the campaign’s coordinators, told Ms Kelly that there should be “a full, open and democratic investigation into what is happening”
The transport secretary delighted the group by promising: “If there is a case for reopening the line, we’ll make sure that the Woodhead tunnel can still be used.”
Formal consultation on the White Paper will take place between May and July before publication of the final “Transport Challenges” document in January 2009.
An Early Day Motion put down by Mr Stringer calling on the government to intervene and “prevent this strategic rail route being lost forever” has been signed by 73 MPs.