Britain’s railways have found a new way to decide who is responsible for passenger services, allowing the timetable to continue its distinguished career as an unsupervised rumour.
The Department for Transport’s railway passenger services designation paper explains how the Railways Bill would assign responsibility for services. It does not set routes or timetables, which is sensible. The timetable has already demonstrated a vigorous resistance to management.
Under the proposed system, the Secretary of State for Transport, along with Scottish and Welsh ministers, could designate the services that Great British Railways or other public sector companies may run. Responsibility has therefore been given a formal mechanism, several clauses and, presumably, a place in the stationery cupboard.
The arrangement is deliberately high level. It does not decide whether a train takes the scenic route, the practical route or the route currently described as temporarily unavailable. Those decisions remain elsewhere, where they can be discussed by people who were not invited to the meeting about responsibility.
The paper also allows services to be locally devolved through exemptions, as has happened with Transport for London. This gives local arrangements room to exist independently, like a branch office that has discovered it can leave the family group chat without consequences.
In the Lawn’s entirely imaginary Department of Named Duties, policy clerk Brenda Letter welcomed the clarification. “People need to know who runs what,” she said. “They do not need a forty page riddle where the answer is a company with an acronym and the train is still at the previous station.”
Designation will not affect track access or the best use of the network, which will remain the responsibility of Great British Railways as system operator. Responsibility has therefore been separated into several responsibilities, each free to point at another one when the platform display says that passengers should listen for an announcement.
The draft designation has no legal effect until the Railways Bill becomes an Act and the relevant formal powers are available. Until then, the paperwork is doing what railway paperwork does best: arriving early, explaining everything and declining to take anyone anywhere.
The timetable has been invited to accept responsibility for its behaviour. It has requested more time to consider the proposal and is expected shortly. Unfortunately, it has not said from where.
Source: Department for Transport.
