Off the Rails

By Keith Waterhouse

PRESUMABLY Sir Ian McAllister, Pounds 250,000-a-year chairman of punch-drunk Network Rail, is by now back at his desk for another year of gruelling three-day weeks after taking an even longer Christmas holiday break than his trains.

Sir Ian was awarded his knighthood in the New Year’s Honours list for services to railway transport. What I am wondering now is whether a knighthood could be kept in reserve from the next honours list, to go to the executive most deserving of an award for services to railway passengers.

No, not you, Transport Secretary Ruth Kelly. The best you can expect is an office whip-round for your leaving prezzie.

Every year and indeed every time Network Rail lifts so much as a chisel the first component to go while its maintenance crews get on with whatever they are maintaining is the poor benighted passenger. Like ice in the buffet car, the passenger is a disposable extra.

A great many Christmases ago, the rich kid at the top of our street got a de luxe Hornby train set. It was so grand that his friends were not allowed to play with it. We had to gawp from his bedroom doorway while he coupled up the Flying Scotsman.

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