News in brief...
Pancras station, will link for the first time local and regional services from Cambridge and Peterborough with the route to Gatwick, Brighton, the south coast and Kent. Dave Ward, Network Rail’s route managing director for London and the south east said: ‘The tunnels are just as important as the redevelopment of London Bridge station in helping to deliver capacity benefits in and out of London.’
New station for Rochester Medway Council has given Network Rail planning permission to build a new station at Rochester to meet the ever increasing demand for train services in the Medway area. This is part of a wider £135 million investment programme in the county by NR. The station will have three platforms which will accommodate longer trains, and better facilities for passengers including accessible toilets with baby changing facilities, cycle racks and retail, as well as step free access.
Which way is south? Virgin Rail's friend the TSSA lost no time publicising a gaffe by the Toc after staff were told to look after Labour politicians travelling to their conference in Manchester. The only problem said the union, was that Labour's conference was 200 miles away in Brighton. TSSA also questioned why Virgin offered discounted fares to delegates of the Lib Dem conference in Glasgow and Tory conference in Manchester and not to Labourites travelling from the north to Brighton. 'This may be because they have made another blunder and got the wrong town again,' said Manuel Cortes, TSSA general secretary.
The London Assembly has called for the development of a national strategy to realise improvements to surface transport access to all London airports. A report from the Assembly, Airport Capacity in London, showed that Gatwick, Stansted and Luton all had capacity to run additional flights but that poor transport links might be putting off Londoners from travelling to these alternative airports. Only 31 per cent of Gatwick Express customers said the service represented value for money and the West Anglia line servicing Stansted has become a ‘significant concern’ for Stansted Airport, which suggested that around one in six trains were delayed by at least 10 minutes.
In a letter to Sir Howard Davies, chair of the Airports’ Commission, the Assembly’s Transport committee suggested that:
• rail access to key international airports should be a priority area for future rail investment, as set out in Network Rail’s market study for London and the South East, especially where traffic congestion and unreliability could cause issues • extending the Oyster card out to Gatwick and Stansted airports could encourage more passengers to use these airports by making journeys easier • airlines could do more to inform their customers about rail travel, especially at airports where it is assumed that car travel would be far quicker than rail due to poor passenger knowledge.
The Assembly’s report showed that there is still relatively low uptake of public transport with most airport passengers choosing to travel by car. In 2010, 31 per cent of passengers at Heathrow used private car and 26 per cent used taxis.
Rail professionals are the least proud
of their sector according to research by engineering recruiter Randstad. In a survey of more
than 2,000 British workers only 32 per cent of those in the rail industry said they are proud of their profession, in contrast to those in the insurance sector, which came in at 90 per cent. In the sectors where
employees felt least proud of their professions, staff generally spent less time at work than the national average. Owen Goodhead, managing director of Randstad explained: ‘A lack of pride can present a very real organisational risk. When employees are less engaged with their profession, they are less likely to go above and beyond the minimum requirement in terms of their weekly hours.’ But these trends do not
always ring true according to Goodhead. ‘Working hours in sectors such as property, construction
Page 10 October 2013
and rail may be more affected by industry deadlines than happiness with your profession. For instance, those working in construction and property may have seen their hours shorten as a result of reduced output during the recession, while those working in rail may be working around the clock in order to complete high- profile projects such as Crossrail.’ He continued: ‘Those
working in the rail sector
seem to be suffering from an image problem which is more dominated by public opinion than the reality of working in the sector itself. ‘Following the
completion of the Olympic Park, Randstad recorded a significant upswing in employee motivation in the construction sector, but ongoing challenges surrounding the HS2 project have prevented a similar reaction from taking place.’
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