Editor Chris Jackson uses the Netherlands as a proxy for rail problems across Europe by highlighting a problem which has afflicted UK railways too: political instability and vacillation compromising the long term strategic thinking which railways demand. Well, they do if you want safe, efficient (practically and financially) and lowest-cost, high value networks.
This has plagued NS over the two decades in which it has been transformed from traditional state railway to train service provider - and plans to render urban operations in major cities were abandoned in a flurry of political wavering. As in the UK, notwithstanding political risk over the last 20 years, new and refurbished fleets are being expanded to work more intensively with the real prospect of ten minute frequency turn-up-and-go services on many routes. But the political will to give NS power to negotiate with unions over productivity and other employment conditions has never been forthcoming.
Even in the Netherlands, small as it is in relative terms, there are suggestions that some sort of - wait for it - 'strategic rail authority' is needed to provide co-ordination beyond the transport ministry! Says Mr Jackson: "The Netherlands is not the only country in Europe where ridership numbers suggest that the rail industry is thriving yet there is a strategic vacuum at the centre of the business." He concludes: "Further change seems inevitable and what NS needs now is a strong leader with a clear vision for the future."
We read it in: Railway Gazette International, July 2015, page 3
