£445m: the cost of late trains

Delays on the chaotic rail system cost Britain's economy nearly half a billion pounds last year, official government figures reveal today.

The loss, £445 million, is based on an estimate of £14.61 for each working hour lost per passenger. It amounts to a third of the total subsidy - £1.3 billion - given by the Government to all 25 passenger train operators in 2001. It comes in a year which saw delays rise by 70 per cent on the year before.

Transport department officials estimate rail passengers wasted an aggregate of 3,400 years as a result of delays in the first nine months alone.

On Connex South Eastern, which serves the busiest commuter routes in Britain, 300 years were wasted. First Great Eastern and WAGN saw the number of trains delayed for more than five minutes rise by 140 per cent and 127 per cent respectively. Increases of between 80 and 90 per cent occurred on First Great Western, Thames, Thameslink and South West Trains.

Business leaders are already counting the cost of four days of strikes on SWT. Yesterday City analysts revealed financial losses of the SWT four-day strike alone were £50 million.

Anthony Smith, national director of the Rail Passengers Council, said: "We've never really added up the true cost of Hatfield and the disruption that followed it. These figures need to be taken very seriously and the Government and the industry must raise performance in the short-term, not concentrate on major enhancement programmes."

The statistics, prepared by Department of Transport officials, were revealed in an answer to a Parliamentary question from Don Foster, Liberal Democrat transport spokesman.

Mr Foster said: "Our railways are beginning to resemble the Bermuda Triangle. Whole years are lost by rail passengers. In the first nine months of last year, total delays on the railways were almost 1,500 years more than the equivalent period in 2000."

The huge total of hours effectively lost from passengers' lives covers every delay affecting the 735 million passenger journeys made over the first nine months of 2001.

Meanwhile the RMT union warned rail companies today they could face similar strike action to that suffered by SWT if they do deals to pay drivers higher rates than other staff. The warning came as hundreds of thousands of passengers returned to normal services following two 48-hour strikes which crippled some of the busiest rail routes serving London.

Vernon Hince, the RMT's acting general secretary, made clear that if train companies conducted separate and higher deals with drivers then the union would take the matter "very seriously".

Leaders of the RMT, largest of the rail unions representing employees other than drivers, have announced another 48-hour strike on SWT in the ongoing row over pay parity between station staff and train guards, compared with drivers in their union Aslef.

The action was today branded a disgrace by Sir Ken Jackson, general secretary of Amicus, the UK's biggest private sector trade union.

"The RMT must let go the throat of the travelling public. It will gain them sympathy. And it will gain them respect," he said.

The union ordered strikes on SWT, used by 350,000 passengers a day, after the firm paid its drivers a 7.6 per cent rise this year. This, said SWT, was to prevent drivers being poached by other companies - with pay rates being forced up by a national shortage of trained drivers.

The union has ordered a further 48-hour stoppage on Thursday and Friday, 24 and 25 January.

It also announced strikes on Arriva Trains Northern, which serves the North-West, in a similar pay parity dispute, to take place at the same time. Meanwhile, it is to discuss further strike action on SWT in the dispute over the demotion of activist Greg Tucker.

The new strike is purely over pay and nothing to do with the second and concurrent dispute over alleged abuse by the Stagecoach-owned company of disciplinary proceedings in dealing with union officials.

However, there are moves to link further action to the dates already announced, perhaps on the Tuesday and Wednesday (22 and 23 January) and then more dates in February if the dispute is not settled.

SWT yesterday imposed the rejected 7.6 per cent pay deal on strike staff. An SWT spokeswoman said: "We remain convinced that our pay award, which is several times the rate of inflation and the best in the industry, is more than fair."

Rail delays in 2001
Byers denial over strike claim