TSSA Journal
Fares review dodges the big issues
It was never going to be easy sorting out the chaotic fares structure. Simplification, standardisation, information, clarity, smartcards – all ...
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Rail accidents must be put in perspective
As a result of the spate of four accidents on the railways across the world in July – Canada, France, ...
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Rolling stock complexity is unnecessary
The most obviously scandalous aspect of the whole rail privatisation fiasco have tended to be over rolling stock deals. It ...
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Decision over East Coast is pure politics
Rail privatisation was supposed to have taken the politics out of the railways. Well, that was never going to happen ...
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London is booming but needs a transport rethink
London is a booming city and it’s going to get better. Successive governments have been accused of channelling railway investment ...
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Public bad, private good – or is it the other way around?
In his George Bradshaw lecture given at the Institution of Civil Engineers in October, Tim O’Toole, the boss of FirstGroup ...
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West Coast franchising chaos has its roots in history
The West Coast fiasco would have been rejected as a script for the political satire show, The Thick of it ...
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Railways have cause to celebrate over investment plans and Olympics
There is much cause to celebrate in the rail industry. The Olympics were an amazing triumph for public transport and ...
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The chaos of the fares system
Everyone knows that the fares system is a complete mess. No other product has such a complex pricing structure. Nor ...
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Command Paper misses the point
The government’s Command Paper, Reforming our Railways: Putting the Customer First, which was finally published in early March, was expected ...
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Alliances: integration or dismemberment?
‘The Times they are a’changin’, but no one quite knows how. The ‘Command Paper’ which was supposed to set out ...
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Can Greening cope with big rail agenda for New Year
Justine Greening has kept a very low profile since being thrust unexpectedly into the transport secretary’s job in October. That’s ...
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Train operators seem to revel in making life difficult
Train travel is becoming more of a hassle almost daily and much of it is down to the way that ...
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Coalition attitude to rail still unclear
It is easy to make heroic statements at the beginning of a new year about this being a momentous time ...
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Hammond delivers for rail
The predictions that the Comprehensive Spending Review would be a disaster for the rail industry proved unfounded. Sure, there ...
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Railways being restructured piecemeal
The Hatfield train crash, whose tenth anniversary is on October 17th, and its aftermath caused one of the biggest ...
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Consultant costs rise because of lost expertise
Normally, when ministers ask for an independent review of a policy, they ensure that some lickspittle ex civil servant is ...
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Coucher departure suggests acrimony at NR
The departure of Iain Coucher as chief executive of Network Rail was presented as a standard ‘pursue other interests’ kind ...
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Transport shunned in election yet again
Transport barely gets a look in at election time and it was not any surprise that no transport issue was ...
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Spanish achievement on high speed rail is remarkable
I have just returned from a brief trip to Spain which is soon to become the European country with greatest ...
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