By ANNE McHARDY
LONDON - "The train is late because of me," the ostentatiously cheerful woman's voice said over the intercom. "It had to wait until I got in from Derby and my train was 15 minutes late."
The four compartments full of passengers who had been waiting on what should have been the 7.30 am Express, a prime rush-hour service from London St Pancras to Sheffield, heaved a communal sigh of relief when the voice also explained that there would be a tea trolley eventually but, because so many people were standing in the corridors, people would have to come to it.
They were glad to be moving at last, having waited for 20 minutes on the only train standing in St Pancras Station, one of London's main stations, for a service that a week earlier would have taken just over an hour to cover the 129km, but now was billed for 180 minutes.
Trains have been either stopped or crawling across the whole of Britain since the rail crash three weeks ago at Hatfield, just north of London, killed four people and injured many more. The crash was caused by catastrophic failure of the railway line, which shattered under the train, causing its derailment. The indications are that the track failure was the result of poor maintenance, hence the checks across the network.
Gerald Corbett, the chief executive of Rail Track, the company responsible for railway lines, said that the problem appeared to lie with the contractor, Balfour Beatty, who four months before the Hatfield crash had not followed procedure for line testing.
Corbett resigned after the crash, but was persuaded by public pressure to stay on, and is now running a check on all lines which have shown recent problems. The delays at St Pancras were a direct result of his checks and worsened by torrential rains and floods which have damaged rail lines and made roads a nightmare. Trains across Great Britain are effectively going up to two hours slower than usual and some are not running at all. All timetables are suspended and replaced by hastily devised new ones. Planning a journey is difficult. The information service is throwing its hands up in despair. "We have been given emergency timetables, but we have no way of knowing if they are accurate," an operator said.
Under the privatisation of what was British Rail by the Conservative Government of Margaret Thatcher, Rail Track was given the lines, and responsibility for their upkeep, while 20 separate companies were given responsibility for the train services.
The crash and the resulting chaos have raised questions about the rail service, with many in the Government now blaming the original privatisation for having been conducted in haste.
A question has been raised also over the continued process of privatisation, now called private-public partnership, which the Government of Tony Blair is insisting should take the London Underground rail service out of public ownership.
The Mayor of London, Ken Livingstone, who opposes the Underground privatisation, said a rethink was essential, once it was clear that Balfour Beatty, which is tendering for the London Underground service, was involved at Hatfield. Before the Hatfield crash no rail service ran at less than full capacity but now every train is full beyond bursting. The only factor keeping people on the trains is that the road services, particularly important major motorways, are as crowded and therefore as slow.
Crowded, slow British rail service adds to woes
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