Railways face good and bad times

The plan to introduce a thousand extra carriages on the railway announced recently by Douglas Alexander, the transport secretary, highlights the major problem now facing the railway: trains are becoming too popular. Until recently that had been reliability. The chaos caused by the aftermath of the Hatfield train crash in October 2000 lasted for several years, resulting in more than a doubling of delays on the network. Passengers became so frustrated they would take earlier trains to be sure of getting to their destination on time. Gradually, that situation has been brought under control, thanks to huge amounts of cash […]