A new Facebook page has popped up angling for free travel on the Underground and Overground through the whole of January. Why? So that those who run the services can do more than just pay lip service when they tell us how sorry they are for the inconvenience caused by the frequent strikes.

From the page:

Sick of constant weekend closures, strikes, delays, Bob Crow, TFL, engineering work, meaningless apologies and upgrade or improvement works that don’t upgrade or improve anything?

Then sign up here. In return for the constant inconvenience they keep apologising for we passengers want free service on the tube and overground networks for the whole of January!

I briefly clicked the Like button on it, but then I had a think and I’ve unclicked it.

A month of free travel would be lovely, but I don’t see what difference it will make or how it will do any good. London Underground could only stop the strikes if it did what the unions wanted, and that’s not always possible.

Neither is London Underground necessarily to blame for overrunning engineering works which by definition require weekend closures.

While I’ll keep an eye on it, from a professional standpoint, I’m going to sit on the side where this campaign is concerned. If you want to check it out, you’ll find the page here.

It looks like a regular map, doesn’t it.

Whether or not the strikers achieve their goals today remains to be seen, but the unions are already warning that 2011 is likely to see us suffer several more strikes.

Sky News is reporting quotes from union boss Bob Crow, who said:

We are moving towards an escalation of the action… come 2011 we will have to consider escalating strikes to more than one day.

Why? Because London Underground wants to reduce its headcount by 800 because more and more of us are using Oyster cards to touch into and out of the network, which naturally need fewer ticket office staff to administer.

I can’t really see the problem. As the BBC reports, London Underground has stated that there will be no compulsory redundancies and staff will be redeployed.

So, unless it gets sorted (and I don’t see how it can, as with ticket office sales declining year on year as more and more of us top up online or by phone) today’s disruption could well be a taste of things to come.

Why such a bike hike this time around? Because the Tory / Lib Den coalition has changed the way that fare increases are calculated. Previously it was pegged at 1% above the Retail Prices Index as measured in the previous summer. Now it’s 3%.

What does this mean in real terms? According to Atoc the average single ticket across the whole rail network currently costs £4.89, but from January it will be £5.19.

Season tickets are going up by slightly less as they are regulated fares, but will still see an increase of around 5.8%. A season ticket from Chelmsford to London, including the tube, will be hiked by £220, from £3,800 to £4020.

Atoc is spinning this as a good think for tax payers. Chief Executive Michael Roberts said:

We know times are tough for many people but next year’s fare increases will ensure that Britain can continue investing in its railways.

Even with these fare increases, the money passengers spend on fares covers only half the cost of running the railways – taxpayers make up the difference. The government is sticking with the previous administration’s policy to cut the taxpayers’ contribution to the overall cost of running the railways.

More and more people are travelling by train and demand is expected to double in the coming decades so it is more important than ever that money is spent on providing better stations, more trains and faster services. Money invested through fares has helped to bring about the record levels of customer satisfaction and punctuality on the railways today.

But, in the longer term we need reform which drives down the cost of the railways by relying more heavily on the innovation and resources of the private sector to give passengers a better service and taxpayers better value for money. (Source: Atoc)

According to Atoc’s figures, train fares will provide around £6bn of funding for the railway next year, covering half of the required £12bn it costs to run the services.

The train companies receive only 3p in every pound as profit, as can be seen on the chart below.

The reply said:

In most cases “poor track conditions” is used to describe lack of traction on the track and trains are unable to grip the rails causing them to slow down. This is mainly due to adverse weather conditions or leaves on the line.

It astounds me that a train weighing several tonnes can be jeopardised by a few leaves falling from the trees, which leaves me with two questions (no pun intended).

1. Did this always happen, or is it only because we now have lighter, more efficient trains that can’t call on the forces of mass and gravity to provide sufficient traction? Or,
2. Are we now such an ultra-cautious society that we daren’t do anything that invokes even a theoretical chance of danger, such as running a train at full speed on some slippery leaves?

None of my trips to or from work have been without problems this last week or so. Yesterday’s total morning journey took an hour longer than usual, door to door, and this morning it was a good 30 minutes over the usual stretch.

Why? Well, this morning it was down to ‘poor rail conditions’, whatever that means. I only know because I checked online while we were still crawling up towards London. There were no announcements on the train itself.

Yesterday it was over-running Route Improvement Works.

I’m sure we’d have called that Engineering Works a few months ago. Route Improvement Works is a bit of smart marketing. It dresses up the delay as something that, long term, is in our own interests.

It says ‘hey, we’re doing this for you – don’t moan – it’ll all be good in the end’.

It also says ‘if you don’t want your line improved, fine. We’ll down tools and then see how you like it’.

Route Improvement Works isn’t an untruth. It is, at heart, what engineering is all about as it stops the route falling into disrepair and patches up dinks in the line, but it’s a phrase that riles me just about as much as the automated apologies you get when you train is running late.

Regulated fares in the UK, which includes season tickets, can currently increase in price by 1% above the rate of inflation year on year, and unregulated fares, which includes most other tickets, can increase by as much as each train operator can justify.

The Campaign for Better Transport has been pushing to change this, not only so that commuters get a better deal but also so that more people use the train, which is of course better for the environment.

With all of the main political parties keen to trumpet their environmental credentials in the run-up to the general election it is therefore surprising that only the Lib Dems have signed up to the cause. Their policy document on transport – a refreshing one-page of clear commitments – states:

We will make sure that regulated fares go up by less than inflation which means prices will come down and we will make Network Rail refund a third of your ticket price if you have to take a rail replacement bus service.

You can’t get much clearer than that.

The rest of the party’s policy briefing notes on transport can be found in this PDF document.

Why? Well it seems to come down to the fact that as a commuter you can use a whole host of different trains, so if your regular service is cancelled you can jump on the next one. Not so with anyone who has bought a one-off ticket for a particular service. Their chances of a refund are much better.

As the Telegraph reports:

National Express East Anglia, whose services into Liverpool Street are expected to be hit particularly badly, said the company would provide the ‘the best possible alternative timetable’ should a strike take place.

‘Where alternative services are not available, customers including season-ticket holders, will be eligible to apply for a refund for the days affected.’

The spokesman declined to say what was meant by the ‘best possible timetable’ or what would happen to commuters for whom this timetable was unsuitable.

Read the full story here.

UPDATE: Love Money suggests that if you’re having trouble getting a refund and you paid by credit card, you should approach your card provider. It says:

If you have problems getting a refund from your train operator, and have paid for a ticket costing £100+ by credit card , then Section 75 of the Consumer Credit Act may apply. This legal right doesn’t apply to debit cards, although some Visa debit cards do offer similar ‘charge back’ cover.

Read Love Money’s full article on your rights with respect to the rail and British Airways strikes here.

Who is striking, and when?

The maintenance workers’ strikes run from 6am on Tuesday 6 April to 11.59pm on Friday 9 April. The signal workers’ strikes run on the same days from 6am until 10am and from 6pm until 10pm. Clearly they are timed to cause maximum disruption to commuters, who travel at the busiest times of the day.

Why are they striking?

Network Rail has asked around 50 signal workers (out of a workforce of 6000) to move to new signalling centres and switch to a four day a week roster.

With regard to the maintenance workers, Network Rail states that it wants to make 1300 job cuts. So far 1100 people have volunteered for redundancy.

Who voted to strike?

Of the 6000 signal workers, 1705 voted in favour of a strike.

Of 18,000 maintenance workers, 6055 voted in favour of a strike.

What do the unions have to say?

RMT, which represents the maintenance workers, stated:

RMT members… could either sit back and wait for these cash-led maintenance cuts to lead to another major disaster on Britain’s railways or they could vote to take action to stop the attack on rail safety. They have overwhelmingly voted to take action.

“Nobody should be under any illusions about just how determined RMT members are to win this dispute and to stop this reckless gamble with rail safety. Nearly 150 MP’s have signed the Early Day Motion opposing Network Rail’s cuts plans and have urged the Government to intervene to call a halt to this jobs carnage on the tracks. We are reissuing that call today.

“RMT is in no doubt that the cuts programme drawn up by Network Rail would drag us back to the dark days of Railtrack and would make another Hatfield, Potters Bar of Grayrigg disaster an inevitability. That is what this dispute is all about and even the Office of Rail Regulation (ORR) has had to concede that the botched attempt to bulldoze through these cuts has raised serious safety concerns.

The TSSA represents the signal workers. Its General Secretary, Gerry Doherty, stated: “This is all about safety, the safety of the travelling public and the safety and security of our members at Network Rail. The Office of Rail Regulation agrees with us that these changes pose a threat to safety. It is time that [Network Rail chief exec] Iain Coucher started listening to his staff and the rail regulator.’

How does Network Rail respond?

Network Rail claims that the maintenance workers strike is about:

changing working practices (we need more people rostered on at night and weekends because the railways are too busy nowadays to do much maintenance work during the day). What it’s NOT ABOUT is safety – the railway is the safest it has ever been (welcome to check with Rail Safety and Standards Board) and we’d do nothing to jeopardise that.

With regard to the signal workers, Network Rail claims that ‘small local issues [have been] escalated to a national level purely for political purposes’. It points out that of the average wage of the 50 affected workers is £48,113, and that the highest-paid receives £65,616.

What is the likely effect?

Network Rail claims that the effects of the maintenance workers’ strike will be minimal. ‘The network can operate for about a week with this workforce on strike as we have enough contingency staff to cover important safety work and to respond to incidents and kit breaking down.’

The last four-day maintenance workers’ strike was two years ago, and saw no cancelled trains, no safety incidents, and 92% of trains running on time.

The impact of the signal workers’ strike is likely to be more hard-felt. As few as 20% of trains may run, and some lines may see no trains at all.

This time we had the added bonus of a fitter travelling out to fix us, but it seems the problem was more serious than expected, and so after another 20 minutes of waiting we were turned out onto the frigid platform to wait for the full-to-capacity replacement trains to roll in.

No chance of getting on one.

Of course, I’d learnt my lesson last time not to try and get on one of the all stations stoppers that pulls up – it takes a couple of hours to get home that way as you roll to a halt at every station down the line. The only alternative was to ride back to Liverpool Street and start again.

It’s galling, and ironic, to be turfed out at Stratford, the station that serves the 2012 Olympic site, from whose platforms you can see the quickly growing stadium and swimming arena.

Will it ever be able to cope with the sudden influx of millions of spectators and competitors from right around the world? I doubt it. Not if tonight is any indication.

But then, it isn’t only this line that needs improvement. Tonight’s Evening Standard reports on a Europe-wide survey that puts the London fourth (out of 23) from bottom in public transport provision. Only Budapest, Zagreb and Ljubljana came out worse.

I’ve been to all of those cities, and frankly they have excuses. London does not. All are found in ex-Soviet states, none can boast the riches of London, pretty little Ljubljana is so small it really doesn’t need much in the way of public transport, and Zagreb has excellent buses and trams.

Admittedly Budapest could do better, and I got horribly ripped off by a taxi driver acting out an apparently common scam that I won’t fall for again, but let’s not forget that it is two cities united by a a river and doesn’t profess to be the world’s financial capital.

Transport into and out of London – on this line at least – is really rather shocking.

It isn’t the first time this has happened. Neither will it be the last, I’m sure.

Really?

Talking on Radio 5 Live today he said:

If I was in standard class I would not do work because people would be looking over your shoulder the entire time, there would be noise, there would be distraction… There’s lots of children, there’s noise, there’s activity. I like to have peace and quiet when I’m travelling. (source: BBC News)

Well don’t we all, Nicholas. Lots of us – myself included – work when we’re travelling. Lots of us would like peace and quiet and no distractions, but we have to make do with plugging into an iPod to block out everyone else.

MPs are the only people in any position to really do anything about the state of the railways in this country, and they should be forced to travel like the vast majority of us – in so-called ‘standard’ class. Perhaps then they’ll see how most of their constituents (a ‘totally different type of people’) live their lives.

I want to be represented by someone who is the same ‘type’ of person as me. How else could they ever fight for those things that interest and concern me?

Like seats on trains, quiet coaches and a service that runs on time.

Image courtesy of M. Holland