Railway industry signs away destiny - again!

Bulldog Drummond gets to read Sir Roy McNulty's Scoping Study...

The DfT and ORR issued the McNulty Value for Money Report Scoping Study today without explaining why it had taken ten weeks to put the it into the public domain (it is dated 31 March).

Lots of good stuff and well worth a read but throughout a depressing response from the industry where the general tenor of comment is to acknowledge that there are problems but it is really for others to get a grip.

Statements that should have appeared in the report but, depressingly, did not (unless Sir Roy is playing his cards exceptionally close to his chest) include:

'Many senior members of the industry we met were just bursting with ideas how to create a better deal for customers but felt thwarted by current circumstances.'

'We were impressed by the overall strategic view that many of our respondents took and their acknowledgement of the need, if required, to reduce profits to make for a better railway.'

'We were highly impressed with the personal responsibility that many we met took for the current, largely undesirable, state of affairs and their desire to put things right as quickly as possible.'

'We were told of a number of carefully thought through ideas that could be implemented immediately and which would reduce cost, produce great efficiencies and demonstrate the commitment of senior management to the industry as a whole.'

If you're not part of the solution...