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JOHN HUMPHRYS: Right okay, Stewart Francis, a very
quick reaction from each of you before we close this discussion, are you
happy with what you've heard, especially that last bit about investment
STEWART FRANCIS: Let's just remember that the passenger
is king. The fact is that Railtrack have been slow to invest, and Tom
Windsor, the Rail Regulator is now putting the foot on Railtrack's accelerator.
What we want is a bit of vision with this. When we had our passengers'
conference on Thursday we were talking about the well-factor. Where are
the big ideas? When I came down to this studio today I left Peterborough
station which is a relatively new station, but it's built in the same style
as the Victorian era. If we're going to get people out of cars then we
have to replicate the car journey, the comfort. Why isn't that platform
covered in glass? Now five - ten years ago we were talking about football
supporters being talked about as being treated as animals. Look at the
rail passengers' experience when they get onto a platform, open to the
elements. Where's the vision that everybody has a seat when they arrive
at the station, where are there a few shops around the station. Why can't
stations be the centre of the community?
HUMPHRYS: George Muir, where are they?
GEORGE MUIR: I went to the conference, Stewart's
conference on Thursday and it was because I want to hear as much as I
can and get feedback from passengers. And the point they were making is
vision. We want an encapsulation of the vision for the railways, and they're
quite right. And fortunately we do have a document which is a good start
for that vision, and a new version is going to come out in March, the network
management statement, and this is a good statement of the totality of what
we're trying to deliver in the railways of Britain.
HUMPHRYS: Thank you. Gerald Corbett, a quick
thought on what Lord MacDonald had to say about where you're investment's
going to come from. Are you satisfied with what he said?
GERALD CORBETT: Yes, broadly, but I mean within what
he said it highlights the weakness, because we've got huge numbers dancing
about, we actually do need a proper plan. If we were a separate business
rather than a whole industry we would have a strategic plan, and that would
be the framework within which we managed ourselves. We would know what
we were trying to achieve, we'd know how we were going to raise the money
and so on. We don't at the moment have that for the industry, and we badly
need that. It's all very well us having our plan, but we've actually got
to have one for the industry and how the money is going to be raised and
how it's going to be spent, and until we've got that leadership we're not
going to be able to make much progress.
HUMPHRYS: Okay. John Redwood, you've heard
what they've all said. You've got a motion down for MPs to discuss this
week. Are you satisfied with everything that's been said. Are you going
to withdraw that motion now.?
JOHN REDWOOD: I'm not going to withdraw the motion.
I think the conversation today has shown that there are a lot of common
sense ideas that we proposed and that the industry has proposed that need
to be adopted. But the complacency of the minister is breathtaking, and
he even seems to agree with some of them, but they're not doing them.
John Prescott has the powers today to solve these problems if he wished
to do so. He is not making the necessary decisions. It was a great Labour
lie they'd improve public transport. It's getting worse because he is
dithering, he's not up to the job, and yes we are going to debate it.
HUMPHRYS: Lord MacDonald?
LORD MACDONALD: Well, in two years we've tried to
undo some of the neglect of twenty years of Tory misrule. What we've got
now is the first comprehensive Transport Bill for a generation, and we
believe that that will give us the Strategic Rail Authority which will
give us the strategic plan that the industry wants.
HUMPHRYS: Gentlemen, thank you all very much
indeed for coming here today and discussing this hugely important problem,
and that is our contribution, On the Record's contribution to Track Record.
But, the BBC's Rail Week continues on the Money Programme today. They'll
be finding out why the Dutch run their rail system so much more efficiently
than we run ours. That's the Money Programme at Eight o'clock on BBC-Two
this evening.
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