Train can’t take the strain when the lines are closed

Mar 12 2008 by Rhodri Clark, Western Mail

IT would be easy to underestimate the challenge facing Network Rail as it tries to turn Britain’s neglected railways into a 21st-century transport system.

The Easter holiday weekend will see 6,000 engineers working around the clock to install new equipment which should make journeys quicker or more reliable in future.

It is not the first time that railways have closed over holiday periods, and it will not be the last.

Some disruption to passengers is inevitable, whenever the work is carried out. Network Rail prefers to target holiday periods, when most commuters have time off. Closing railways at holiday times inconveniences fewest travellers, it says.

But highways officials take the opposite approach. They aim to clear the roads of cones each holiday weekend, even if that means replacing the cones for work to continue afterwards. The drawback is that the roadworks can inflict long- drawn-out delays on commuters, delivery companies and others.

The general principle of Network Rail’s approach has merit. The problem lies in the number of routes affected on a single weekend.

It is unacceptable that for journeys between the North Wales coast and London, many passengers face not one but two Easter railway closures. That could make places such as Llandudno, Snowdonia and Anglesey seem a long way from London for anyone heeding official advice to travel by train instead of car.

And, once again, spectators attending a major sporting event in the Millennium Stadium – this time the back-to-back EDF Energy Cup semi-finals – will get a poor impression of transport links between London and Cardiff.

Somebody, preferably at ministerial level, needs to explain to Network Rail that tourism and leisure account for a high proportion of economic activity in Wales. Closing railways temporarily at holiday periods might be acceptable in Surrey or Kent, but is potentially damaging when it affects all routes between London and Wales.

Network Rail should learn from Continental railways, where safe working practices have been developed for engineers to work on one track while trains pass by on another – in the same way as highways are maintained in Britain.

Questions should also be asked about the age and condition of our rail infrastructure, especially at key locations such as the Severn Tunnel. The economic cost of so much disruption to travel should be factored into deliberations over building new high-speed railways.

The problems of over-use of cars are obvious in Wales on bank holidays, when car parks are full, streets in resorts clogged with traffic and frustrating tailbacks build up on major routes whenever an accident occurs.

We need the train to take the strain for economic and environmental reasons, but that message is obscured whenever the strain is passed on to the hapless leisure traveller.