60 people to change train timetable

The Transport Secretary has launched a scathing attack on the astonishing scale of railway bureaucracy after it was revealed that 60 people turned up to meetings on timetable changes.

Far too many people were involved in the most straightforward decisions about running Britain's railways, Alistair Darling said.

"That's not a good way to run a railway," he said, referring to the fact that it took 60 people to discuss changes to a branch line timetable.

Mr Darling said there were too many organisationsinvolved in regulating safety. "Everybody recognises the privatisation process was flawed. Nobody wants to go back to the British Rail days," he said. "But the sense I get from this industry is that while it wants stability, it knows the organisation is not the right one."

Speaking just weeks after announcing a sweeping review of the industry's structure, he said he remained open about the conclusions of the review but the industry needed to be simplified and had to start acting with more co-ordination.

It also needed to control its costs, he told the Financial Times today.

"We need to have an effective and efficient railway, one where there's cost control but also one where the organisation is capable of taking this railway on not just for the next four or five years but for the next decade and afterwards.

"When I ask myself the question, 'Was the structure one that would last over decades?', the answer was no," Mr Darling said.

The Health and Safety Executive blamed the industry's own rule-making procedures for apparently unnecessary safety rules, he said.

Yet, he added, train operators said they needed to apply excessively cautious regulations under their so-called safety cases - their operating procedures which are approved by the HSE.

"These are issues in the industry everybody knows need to be sorted out," Mr Darling said.

The review has reportedly caused confusion in the railway industry because it has been launched without a consultation paper and backed by few firm suggestions from the Department for Transport as to how the industry's structure could change.

Mr Darling said his department had simply been trying to be open.