LONDON — According to the Associated Press, Britain’s much-maligned train system must improve or find its investment withering, the government’s railway minister said Wednesday.
“If the train is dirty, then clean it. If the toilet’s overflowing, no excuses — fix it. If you know a train is going to be late, tell your customers. And explain why and what you’ve done about it,” Transport Secretary Alistair Darling told a railway industry conference.
British trains are regularly criticized for being run down, late and occasionally dangerous, with a series of fatal accidents in recent years blamed on poor maintenance and a lack of investment.
Last year Prime Minister Tony Blair (news – web sites)’s Labor Party scrapped Railtrack PLC, the private firm placed in charge of rail infrastructure when the Conservatives sold British Rail in the early 1990s. More than a dozen other private companies own and run the trains.
Railtrack has been replaced with a nonprofit firm, Network Rail.
Darling said that while service had improved, “progress has not been as rapid as we want.”
“And as the causes of delays are fairly evenly split between infrastructure and operators, everyone must do much better — and do better this year,” he added.
The government has resisted calls by some unions for the railway system to be renationalized. But Darling said private firms had to take their customers’ interests more seriously.
“Passengers should be treated as valued customers, not left to feel like victims. One of the selling points of the private sector is often said to be its customer service ethos,” Darling said.
“Let’s be blunt. Some of you are good at this. Others are not. It’s worth spending time getting it right.”
“You can’t rely on nostalgia to persuade people we should continue to invest in the railways. We need to point to delivery of better services,” he said.
Also Wednesday, a train crashed with a garbage truck at a level crossing in Annersley, central England. No one was injured.