LETTER : Partisan use of Railtrack's safety record

From Professor G. L. Huxley

Sir: The Department of Transport and the authorities in Railtrack have denied that safety is being compromised on the railways, despite warnings given by persons responsible for the operation and maintenance of the system. However, a recent advertisement for an "investment adviser" in the commercial directorate of Railtrack shows that there is cause for alarm. The business manager appointed will be responsible for

balancing commercial priorities with engineering and operational requirements, and ensuring risks are identified and managed.

The philosophy inherent in these words is dangerous.

If an engineer designs and costs a replacement bridge, the investment adviser will be able to overrule him. So either the existing bridge will be closed or it will be able to carry only lighter traffic. If a signalling scheme is deemed too costly, "savings" will be enforced.

Railway safety depends first of all upon discipline, not upon appraisal technique; but with the fragmenting of the system, morale and discipline are being ruined by emphasis upon ridiculously complicated contracts. What the advertisement reveals is a programme of enforced decline and closures designed by the Treasury to ensure that the remnant of the system can be sold off, but fragmentation and financial anaemia do not constitute a transport policy.

Professional railway operators and engineers do not "manage" risks: they strive day and night to reduce them to insignificance and to remove them. The advertisement is symptomatic of the folly resulting from the 1993 Railway Act. The original sin is to have separated track and signalling from the operating companies. Railtrack should not be prepared for sale: the entire bureaucratic incubus of Railtrack and Regulators and Franchisers should be abolished and, in the interest of safety and sanity, the coherence of our railways should be restored.

Yours faithfully,

George Huxley

Church Enstone, Oxfordshire