AS an illustration of the state of Scotland’s railways it couldn’t have been more apt. When the Sunday National phoned Dr John McCormick, chair of the Scottish Association for Public Transport, for a comment he had just found out his train was cancelled.
Along with a platform of passengers hoping to travel into Glasgow, he was checking out the new Robroyston station when he learned that the next two trains due to arrive were no longer running.
“They’ve spent all this money on a wonderful new station and people are turning up for the first week of operation and discovering the trains are cancelled,” he said. “It makes you wonder whether they will want to come back again.”
The cancellation was due to a signal failure at Polmont which McCormick pointed out was a Network Rail problem rather than troubled train operator Abellio.
It was announced by the Scottish Government last week that Abellio’s franchise would be cut short three years early in 2022 after rejecting a request to increase its subsidy.
READ MORE: Abellio could re-apply for ScotRail contract
The announcement follows widespread complaints about its service but while Abellio is bearing the brunt of the anger and dissatisfaction, most transport analysts agree the problems with the railways – not just in Scotland but in the whole of the UK – can be traced back to the Tory Government’s decision to privatise them in 1993.
Even the Tories have conceded the present system has gone off the tracks and have ordered yet another review which is due to report in the new year.
The RMT union has warned the Williams Review is likely to side with big business and “duck” the issue of public ownership, the option supported by over two-thirds of rail users.
After privatisation, the public sector in the UK was not allowed to bid for rail franchises in Britain despite the fact they were open to companies like Abellio, the international arm of Dutch state operator Nederlandse Spoorwegen.
Until recently, the Scottish Government had to abide by these rules but in 2016, as a result of the Smith Commission’s recommendations, some powers were devolved to allow Holyrood to both consider and fund public sector bids for the ScotRail franchise.
Dr McCormick believes this may not solve the problem however. “You’ve got to ask yourself whether this publicly owned company exists at the moment,” he said.
“People keep talking about CalMac bidding but if you look at the shambles of a ferry service and ferries being cancelled right, left and centre and breaking down it’s not a particularly good vision. There is a lot of expertise in running a railway – even to run it badly. You can’t just expect a complete management team to pop up in Scotland to run the railway.
READ MORE: Abellio stripped of ScotRail contract three years early
“People that know how to do it are already in companies bidding for franchises so I don’t know what is going to happen and I imagine Transport Scotland don’t either. The long and short of it is that it is an expensive operation and the taxpayer is funding more than half the ticket prices.
“Ideally they need to get lots more passengers using the trains and then the financial position would not be so bad but the trains need to be more reliable and we need better bus rail coordination so the buses connect with the trains.
‘‘Only 10% of the Scottish population is within walking distance of a train station and the station car parks are usually full so we need an integrated transport system so you can get the bus to the station then take the train all on one ticket.”
TRANSPORT experts point out that in the UK as a whole the Tory idea that a nationalised rail industry was less efficient than a private one has been proved completely wrong.
Despite chronic underfunding the railways under the public ownership and operation of British Rail were far more efficient than many European counterparts – now the opposite is the case and across the UK increasing amounts of public subsidy are being funnelled into keeping the trains running while profits are syphoned abroad to the German, Dutch, French and Italian operators who mainly run the trains in Britain.
READ MORE: End of the line for Abellio... now we need joined-up thinking
One of the problems facing the Scottish Government in 2022 will be if a publicly owned company still has to bid against private operators for the franchise. It is estimated it will cost anything between £20 million and £30m to prepare a bid and then civil servants may be bound under the rules to favour a private operator with a less expensive offer.
This is one of the reasons there have been calls for more powers to be devolved to the Scottish Parliament so that competitive tendering can be abolished and a direct award can be made to a public sector operator.
However, train drivers’ union Aslef says it has been advised that even within the bidding system, the Scottish Government could ensure the running of ScotRail on a not-for-profit basis by stipulating that any bid involving a for-profit element would not constitute adequate tender.
Meanwhile, Abellio has said it is “hugely disappointed” their offer was rejected which would have seen “improved performance at reduced cost”.
“Abellio has invested more than £475m in new and upgraded trains, added 23% more seats for customers and created more than 500 extra jobs in Scotland since the start of the franchise in 2015 – the biggest investment in trains and stations in over 150 years,” said a spokesperson.
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