The benefits of privatisation explained - No 94

This from Railnews...

CANCELLATIONS of London Midland services are set to continue until December, the operator has warned. More than 60 trains are set to be cancelled in the Birmingham area today alone, because of an acute shortage of drivers...

London Midland commercial director Richard Brooks apologised for the problems, and added: "The challenge is that it takes over 12 months to recruit and train a driver, yet we will lose drivers after three months if they choose to go elsewhere."

And from Aslef, perhaps unsurprisingly, not a word.

RMT rewards Bob with an 8% increase

Good news for Crow Bar Bob!

This from today's Sunday Times...

Bob Crow, the militant leader of the RMT rail union whose pay and benefits rose by 8% to £91,646 in 2008... said: “I don’t really know if my pay rise was inflation busting”.

The Eye is unsure which will be a bigger surprise to RMT's hard pressed members.

The size of Bob's pay rise or his apparent ignorance of the inflation rate.

Alice in Regulation-land

As the recession continues to bite it is not only the Train Operating Companies who are feeling the pain.

ATOC is believed to be looking to reduce headcount by 15% - a move which has been welcomed by its cash strapped TOC members.

Of course whilst thousands of jobs are being shed by the passenger facing railway the paper-pushers of Whitehall sleep safe in their beds.

Despite costing the industry many millions of pounds there are no equivalent headcount reductions planned by the Department for Transport and Office of Rail Regulation.

Alas.

Such a head in the sand approach to economic realities resulted in stormy scenes at a recent meeting between owner groups and the ORR.

When pressed on when it might reduce its bloated headcount the ORR made a half hearted offer to reduce staff numbers by 5%... over five years!

Unfortunately, for reasons of taste, it is not possible to print the industry's response to this generous offer.

NatEx to sack 750

Telegrammed by the General Manager
Thousands of pissed off customers, 750 Christmases wrecked and one boss sitting pretty in a pear tree.

In this season of goodwill it will be a comfort to every Scrooge to see NatEx sustaining its unenviable reputation for customer care and people management (most recent critique Martin Vander Wyer's annual railway rant in this week's Speccie) in dumping 750 front line staff.

Selling the railway journey experience in the coming months is going to be hard work but there are much bigger issues at stake.

It clearly must not override the far higher priority of rewarding board-room excellence.

Bowker's package is equivalent to some 40 or 50 front line workers and boardroom hand-outs probably represent 250 plus workers who could really make a difference.

This is just the sort of tough management decision that has to be taken and does so much for a company's reputation.