We jointly produced a report What does the future of rail staffing mean for disabled and older passengers? looking at how government proposals for rail cost savings is putting up to 20,000 jobs at risk across the rail network and what this will mean for those passengers with mobility and access issues.

Then we rocked up at Westminster to put our concerns directly to the transport minister, Norman Baker MP:

 After that, we made a stand outside Kings Cross station, handing out over 1,500 postcards to passengers in just over an hour!

What does the future of railway staffing mean for disabled and older passengers? has been produced in partnership with Transport for All, the National Pensioners Convention and Disabled People Against Cuts and includes findings from a new survey of disabled passengers commissioned by Action for Rail.

The survey findings show that disabled passengers hugely value the availability of staff on trains and at stations. 39% of disabled passengers say that they rely on staff assistance, a further 32% said they found it helpful.

Key benefits that staff provide include enhancing personal safety and security, providing travel information, buying tickets and help access facilities and getting on and off trains.

No wonder then that over 75% said the loss of staff would make train travel difficult, with over a third saying that it would deter them making some journeys on make travel impossible.

A particularly worrying finding from our survey was that over a quarter (27%) said they had been abused or suffered a hate crime while using the railways (jumping to over 40% for those that use wheelchairs). Losing staff from trains and stations is no joke for many people who face this kind of hostility and threat.

The government, through their Access Action Plan, have asked all train operators to produce Disabled Person’s Protection Plans (DPPPs) to demonstrate how they will broaden access to the railways for disabled passengers. Yet at the same time, proposals in the McNulty Review, endorsed by both the government and rail operators, indicates that we could lose up to:

• 7,000 guards and other non-driver staff on trains
• 5,000 station and platform staff
• 2,000 ticket office staff
• 675 ticket offices

How train operators intend to square this circle is yet to be seen. We will be writing to all of them to find out, so watch this space.

In the meantime, we will be joining up with disabled and older passengers to meet MPs at Westminster to raise these concerns on Wednesday 24 April at 1.30pm. If you want to join us email actionforrail@tuc.org.uk  And you’ll find us up at Kings Cross station from 4.30pm that same day. Come along and join us.

Braving freezing conditions, we had teams out from Devon to Scotland and most parts in between. And as usual, the response from passengers has been great. No one wants to see a ghost service, every wants staff on their trains, at their stations, in their booking offices and out there keeping our track and signalling at its very best.

Here’s some of our friends out today.

In Wolverhampton

In Downham Market, Norfolk

In Derby  

But what did come as more of a surprise were a couple of moments of rare candour from the two men in charge of the railways that undermined the free market cliches that they usually spout.

First up, came Secretary of State Patrick McLoughlin.

Trying to undermine Labour’s claims about the success of publicly operated East Coast, he stated that the comparisons with the former private operator National Express were only favourable because of the reduction in track access charges that the public operator faced.

I pay tribute to the work done by Directly Operated Railways, which has operated it, but when the hon. Lady talks about figures, she should look at the track access charges paid in control period 3 by National Express when it ran the east coast line. It paid £210 million in track access charges, whereas DOR now has to pay its track access charges of £92 million. [Interruption.] I can tell the shadow Leader of the House that that was paid in the year to which I referred.   (Hansard)

So the basic logic of this argument is that train operating companies only look good because we’ve systematically reduced the charges they pay. We couldn’t agree more. This is all part of the scam that we thought the Secretary of State would probably rather not talk about. Train company charges have been reduced so that they get to keep more of the revenue themselves, pretending to be profitable companies, while those charges are paid for by the taxpayer subsidy to Network Rail instead. An indirect subsidy from taxpayer to train operator that keeps the whole privatisation charade afloat. The Association of Train Operating Companies get all hot under the collar when you bring this up. I imagine a few of them whinced at that one.

Bear with us, that might seem quite techy. But we’ve got a report to drop soon that will expose this in a bit more detail and hopefully makes things nice and crystal clear. The gist is, without taxpayer funding to reduce track charges, train companies can’t survive.

Next up, came the Rail Minister, Simon Burns.

In an almost comically hapless appearance on the Daily Politics show, alongside Christian Wolmar and others, Burns quite clearly debunked another of the great myths of privatisation: private sector investment in the railways is pitiful.

The privatisation champions will tell you that, unlike the dark ages of British Rail, today’s railways are subject to massive investment because of those hardy, risk taking souls in the private sector who are committing hard capital to the industry and reaping the rewards.

Well, according to Simon Burns:

What we are seeing at the moment is continued investment through subsidies … (interviewer: from the taxpayer) … through pricing mechanisms.

In case that wasn’t clear enough for you, here he is again a bit later:

In the next control period, over £37 billion is being invested … by Network Rail and the government

Network Rail and the government?  Come again, Simon. That doesn’t sound very gung ho and free market to me.  Where’s the moolah from the train operators?

As Transport for Quality of Life report, genuine at risk private investment accounts for about 1% of all investment in our railways. The lion’s share comes either directly from the taxpayer or increasingly from Network Rail borrowing, which currently stands at over £28bn. Off the government books, of course, but underwritten by the taxpayer none the less.

So not only does the government have to fund Network Rail to plug the gap in track charges that train companies no longer pay. But their massive debt burden is used to provide the investment that train companies don’t put in. Incidentally, Network Rail’s debt is now so hight that it pays more in interest payments to service the debt than it does in track maintenance and renewal.

Remind us again, what are franchises for?

Anyway, thanks to Messrs McLoughlin and Burns for clearing that one up. The train companies must be thinking “with friends like these … ”

 Rail campaigners will mark the fiftieth anniversary of the Beeching Report today (Wednesday) by holding protests at over 35 stations throughout the UK against planned new cuts to services and staff.

 The protests, which have been organised by the TUC’s Action for Rail campaign, come as train operating companies prepare to embark upon a new programme of cost-cutting over the next six years that could see:

•  Over 20,000 railway jobs put at risk,
•  the closure of 675 ticket offices and 
• a 50 per cent increase in the number of unstaffed stations.

 Train companies are driving through the cuts in an attempt to find £3.5bn in efficiency savings by 2019, as requested by the government.

 If the cuts go ahead one in ten staff currently working on the railways – including train guards, maintenance workers, and ticket office staff – could lose their jobs and around three-quarters of all the UK’s railway stations could become unstaffed, says the TUC.

 Action for Rail says the scale of the proposed cuts are frightening and plans to use Wednesday’s demonstrations to highlight how train are using Beeching-style tactics to slim down local services in a bid to make short-term savings.

 Campaigners plan to hand out cards with a message about staff and servicing cuts at over 35 train stations across the UK – on Wednesday morning and evening.

 The cards’ message reminds train travellers that in return for paying the most expensive train fares in Europe they can look forward to service cuts, and ticket office closures.

 Action for Rail campaigners will use the cards to encourage commuters to tell their local MPs their concern over what is happening to the UK’s railways. The cards urge MPs to back a policy of investment, fair fares and a publicly-owned railway that puts people and commuter safety before profits.

 In London RMT General Secretary Bob Crow, TSSA General Secretary Manuel Cortes and ASLEF General Secretary Mick Whelan will join campaigners at 8am at Euston station.

 TUC General Secretary Frances O’Grady said: “Rail firms seem intent on resurrecting the ghost of Dr Beeching, by embarking upon a new era of swingeing railway cuts.

 At a time when passengers are being forced to pay the most expensive train fares in Europe, they also face the prospect of unstaffed stations and guardless trains. Instead of chomping at the bit to make cuts, train operating companies should be looking to improve vital services at stations and on trains. There is no fairness in asking commuters to pay more for less.

 ASLEF General Secretary Mick Whelan said: “Beeching’s vandalism was the worse example of the malaise of short-term thinking that has beleaguered our industry throughout its history.

 “A successful rail network is planned carefully for decades ahead. It isn’t subjected to short-term, utterly-unimaginative sticking-plaster solutions like letting franchises, reducing services, poking up fares and cutting staff.” 

 RMT General Secretary Bob Crow said:

“Beeching got it badly wrong half a century ago on the future of rail as a popular mode of travel. His butchery of rail services has been matched by more recent generations of politicians in the fragmentation and exploitation of privatisation. Now is the time to right the wrongs of the past and put an expanded, integrated and publicly-owned railway at the heart of future transport policy.”

 TSSA General Secretary Manual Cortes said:

“Our railways are a success story despite the repeated attacks by the government, Beeching 50 years ago, privatisation twenty years ago and now McNulty which will see the closure of hundreds of booking offices and thousands of job losses. Further cuts are not the answer, as Beeching proved so comprehensively five decades ago. We need an affordable, socially-owned railway like the rest of Europe where passengers always come first.”

 The the following levels of jobs are at risk for different categories of rail worker:

Find out where your nearest activity will be using our new on-line search tool

As we reported before, East Coast has been a success story under public ownership. A dramatic contrast from the two previous privatisation disasters on the same line. 

Today’s decision shows a flagrant disregard for anything that deviates from the fundamentalist notion of ‘private good, public bad’. There is no rational reason why East Coast should not be retained as a successful in-house model, at the very least as a public sector comparator for the rest of the privatised network (if not as an actual model for further in-sourcing of failed franchises).

As Frances O’Grady, General Secretary of the TUC puts it:

The government is showing that it has an ideological zeal for privatisation for its own sake with no interest in alternative models or any form of evidence-based analysis of what works best for the rail industry, passengers or taxpayers

So, instead of a succesful railway earning money for the taxpayer to be reinvestd in the service, we will now see yet another “thinly capitalised company with few assets and relatively little ability to bear downside risk” (as the Office of Rail Regulation likes to refer to Train Operating Companies) run the service, while hoovering up public subsidy and paying almost every penny of what little operating profit it accumulates to its owning company in the form of shareholder dividends. Don’t expect new investment to go far beyond the advertising budget and change of paint on the side of the trains.

Maria Eagle, shadow transport minister has put it pretty well, so we’ll finish with her:

 With the Government’s rail franchising programme in chaos, it is a bizarre and dogmatic decision to prioritise the privatisation of a service that is actually on track. Since running services on a not for private profit basis, the East Coast operator has returned £640million to the taxpayer and invested more than £40million in improvements to the service, achieving some of the best results for passengers since records began.

So it struck us as no surprise to see the findings of the latest Which? survey, as reported by a range of papers today, including The Guardian.

As The Guardian reports:

Half of the train companies had a customer satisfaction score of 50% or lower, while overall, only 22% of train users felt the service they received was improving, despite an inflation-busting increase in average season ticket prices of 4.2%.

Spokesmen for ATOC and First Group (who come out of this particularly badly) are right to point out the wide discrepencies between headline figures in the Passenger Focus and Which? surveys.

But, as we pointed out before, behind the general satisfaction findings, the Passenger Focus survey finds some very underwhelming responses around key issues of value for money and staffing levels. And these figures tally very closely with the findings of Which?

With massive levels of public funding (well Network Rail debt to be more precise), its no wonder that passengers tend to find their service generally good.

But on the key issues that private Train Operators are supposed to bring to the table, customer service and value for money, they are found decidedly wanting.

So the publication by Passenger Focus of the Autumn 2012 national rail passenger survey caught our eye, see today’s Financial Times (£) or Daily Mail for more on this.

Seems less than half of all rail passengers think they get value for money from their service.  Make that around a third if you look at the likes of South West Trains.

Tellingly, availability of staff on trains and stations remains an area of concern as always.

Less than half of rail passengers think there’s enough staff on their trains, yet the government still wants to see Driver Only Operation as the default position for all trains. Only 60 per cent think there’s enough at stations, although that hasn’t stopped the government green lighting ticket off closures and calling for a review of staffing levels as part of new franchise agreements.

Train punctuality, conditions of stock, information all score very highly. All of which largely results from increased public sector investment through Network Rail.

So a mixed picture in terms of passenger attitudes, but the key areas of responsibility of the train operators (pricing and staffing) score poorly.

Train fares will increase by 3.9 per cent, on average, from today with some passengers facing hikes of up to 10 per cent on their journeys, says the TUC.

Research published last month by the TUC’s Action for Rail campaign shows that average train fares have risen nearly three times faster than average wages since the beginning of the recession in 2008.

The huge disparity between fare and wage increases means that a family of four (two adults and two children) looking to travel to London on an anytime ticket from Swansea, Plymouth, Leeds, Manchester or Newcastle in 2013 would have to pay than the average weekly wage of £481.

As well as being asked to pay more passengers also face the prospect of ticket office closures and fewer staff on trains and stations.

Train operators are expected to make significant cuts to jobs in 2013 in an attempt to find £3.5bn savings across the rail industry by 2018/19 – a target set by the government in response to the McNulty Review published last year.

Train operators have already begun to implement ticket office closures and seem keen on speeding up the process, warns the TUC.

Earlier this month, Michael Roberts, chief executive of the Association of Train Operating Companies, called on the government to scrap the regulations that currently require passengers to be consulted over ticket office opening hours and station closures.

Passenger surveys consistently demonstrate that the travelling public want more staff on trains and at stations and currently over half of the tickets purchased nationally are through face-to-face contact with ticket office or train staff.

TUC General Secretary and chair of Action for Rail Frances O’Grady said: ‘I understand the frustration felt by many commuters going back to work today. At a time when real wages are falling and household budgets are being squeezed, rail travellers are being forced to endure yet another year of inflation-busting fare increases.

‘As well as having to shell out record amounts of money for their tickets, passengers also face the prospect of travelling on trains with fewer staff and having less access to ticket offices. They are being asked to pay much more for less.’

ASLEF General Secretary Mick Whelan said: ‘Over a year ago, when he was the transport secretary, Philip Hammond warned that the cost of tickets was making the railways ‘a rich man’s toy’.

‘Ever since then the government has stood idly by as fares have rocketed. Is this their solution to over-crowded trains – pricing the poor off the rails so the rich can sit comfortably?’

RMT General Secretary Bob Crow said: ‘As passengers return from the festive break they will be kicked in the teeth with inflation-busting fare increases that will do nothing other than fatten the profits of the greedy train operators. 2013 will the year that the fight to re-nationalise the railways goes into overdrive.’

TSSA General Secretary Manuel Cortes said: ‘The coalition is squeezing rail passengers until the pips squeak with the latest inflation-plus increase.

‘Ministers have increased regulated rail fares by 16 per cent in what they admit is the age of austerity. We now have the highest fares in Europe and the government plans to hike them above inflation every year until at least 2019 if it wins the next election.’

Unite national officer Julia Long said: ‘Today’s inflation-busting rail fare rise is a smack in the face for the country’s commuters, already stung by this government’s out-of-control austerity. It is not even as if rail travellers will be getting more for their money, as rail operators are slashing staff numbers and closing ticket offices too.

‘The government should be doing more to stop this blatant profiteering by rail operators and get serious about curbing sky-high rail fares.’