Immediately after the high temperatures of two weeks ago, a tabloid newspaper reported that there had ‘of course’ been ‘chaos’ on the railways. But is it ‘of course’? And if it is, is it the fault of those who operate the railways? As far as I can see there are four possibilities:
1) temperatures of this order inevitably disrupt train services;
2) they need not, but because such high temperatures are still a comparative novelty in the UK our railway operators have not yet learned the techniques for coping;
3) the crisis was, fortuitously, badly handled;
4) British railway operators inevitably handle such matters badly.
The popular press would like you to believe 4, because the idea that all railway personnel are incompetent, and poor service therefore inevitable, is one of their tropes. My guess for what it is worth is that high temperatures always have the potential for disruption, but that aspects of the problem this time took operators by surprise. But my main point is that the truth in all its likely subtleties must be on record even if scattered across many sources, and some attempt should have been made – should still be made – to establish it. It is one of the many virtues of written records that they are an invaluable aid to establishing objective truth, the more so as objective truth is such a precious commodity nowadays.
Here, then, is the very small quantity of evidence I have myself. The journey I took on the hottest day, 25 July, from London to Lincolnshire and back, was trouble free on the outward leg (though there was a reduced service), seriously disrupted on the way back. This suggests that the problem got worse as the day advanced to its hottest, and hence that high temperature as such inevitably causes problems. However, it is reported (Railway Magazine, August 2019) that in some cases where expansion of the overhead electrification wiring occurred and led to its collapse, this was because it was older equipment which was not fitted with devices to adjust the tension of the wires automatically. This implies some lack of preparedness, although it does not imply that that lack was culpable.
Is ‘chaos’ the right word to use for what happened? When services were, for example, unable to leave London from Euston, St Pancras and Kings Cross perhaps it is, but the popular press, by using it for any kind of operating problem from complete collapse to slight inconvenience, have devalued the word. It would be good to hear what went well on 25 July. Apart from the smooth outward journey referred to above, I can testify that the staff on my disrupted homeward journey, both the station staff at Grantham and the staff on the London-bound train, treated us very well, keeping us fully informed and ensuring that we did indeed get home.
It is worth comparing the problems of extreme heat with those of extreme cold. The latter has always meant operating problems for the railways: I remember in particular a week or so of sub-zero temperatures in February 1985 which meant some very long waits for connections as the cold cut through my clothes. But this does not mean that disruption in cold weather is out of proportion to the temperature. In fact the railway is the form of transport which does continue to function in extreme cold: trains do get through, however badly delayed. In the winter of 1979 British Rail temporarily reopened the closed station at Dronfield, Derbyshire, because the roads into and out of the town were made impassable by snow. So many passengers were attracted that this eventually led to the station’s permanent reopening.
Railway affairs have rarely been well reported in this country. Nonetheless there have been exceptions. I think particularly of the local and regional reporters in all media who covered British Rail’s attempt to close the Settle-Carlisle line. They wanted to establish the truth, and so they tenaciously sought the evidence. This certainly helped to save the line, and may well have been critical. At any rate, on all such matters it is worth closely scrutinising the record. This is not only because, where mistakes have been made, establishing their nature helps us avoid repeating them. The truth is valuable in itself. It causes us to think. And, unlike tabloid clichés, the truth and its record are interesting.
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