Transport -
Trains 6
Connex
faced a £1.65 million fine for providing a poor
service after admitting that its service had been
poor in January 2003. The fine was more than six
times the amount the company had to pay for
underperforming in January 2002. A company
spokeswoman said, "January was a difficult
month for us. We were hit by snow in Kent and
central London during the month. We always keep
passengers informed of our performance figures
and we hold regular meetings with passengers so
they can put forward their views. There will be
improvements, especially as we are in the process
of replacing all our old slam-door rolling stock
with new trains."
A
new £3.5 billion rail safety system would result
in more than 10 times as many people being killed
than saved, the Commission for Integrated
Transport says. The system recommended after the
1999 Paddington crash would reduce track capacity
and drive more people on to the roads. Fatality
rates are far higher on the roads than on the
railways, added the commission, which is
Government-funded but independent. The new system
is the European Rail Traffic Management System
(ERTMS), which would prevent trains going through
danger signals. The commission says its research
shows introducing the first phase of ERTMS would
save, on average, just one life on the railways
every 16 months. The commission says the demands
of ERTMS would reduce the number of trains that
could use the network by between 10% and 15%.
This would force passengers on to roads at the
rate of more than a billion extra passenger
kilometres a year - leading to 13 to 21 more road
deaths. An official public inquiry report last
year said ERTMS should be introduced on all UK
100mph lines by 2010. CfIT says that while it
strongly supports any measures to save lives on
the railways, they must not be at the expense of
track capacity and the consequential extra lives
lost as rail users are forced on to the roads.
A
rail company tried to guess the size of 3,000
workers for new uniforms, and got it wrong.
Connex staff say the uniforms cost more than
£700,000 and are more suited to catwalk models
than a typical British rail guard. One guard from
Gillingham who's 5ft 4ins and "slightly
portly" said he was sent a uniform for
someone who was 6ft 2ins and
"stick-thin". The company admitted the
gaffe in an in-house magazine. It said,
"Imagine guessing the sizes of 3,000 staff.
With hindsight it's ridiculous. No wonder it went
wrong."
A Connex spokeswoman says the problem happened
because they were forced to rush through the
order. She said, "In order to get the
uniforms in for winter, we had to get the order
in within two weeks. Unfortunately we did not
have the time to measure everyone, so we put in a
random order." She added, "We have not
had to throw away the uniforms. Many did fit and
others will be useful over time."
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