Labour's 14.25 per cent pay rise offer to end the rail strikes is a capitulation: Jayne Dowle

It's a capitulation, simple as that. The super-generous offer, which members of the train drivers’ union Aslef are being urged to accept by the union’s General Secretary Mick Whelan, comes with no terms and conditions, a “clean deal” as their leader calls it.

This means costly and restrictive polices - known as “Spanish practices” – will continue unfettered in the rail industry. It’s reported that, for example, drivers are paid for the time it takes to walk between trains, with walking times grossly over-estimated, that if a boss speaks to them to say good morning and they’re on a break, they have the right to start the break again, and that teams of up to nine workers may be sent to do a simple job such as changing a plug socket.

If you thought that this kind of thing belongs to the nationalised industries of the 1970s – and my dad worked in the steel industry, so I know similar tales from first-hand – think again.

The truth is, our rail industry has not been fit for purpose for years.

According to Network Rail data, train passengers have lost nearly one million minutes to delays caused by signal failures alone in the past five years.

A total of 988,419 minutes of delays across England, Scotland and Wales since the 2018-19 financial year have been caused by this issue.

The data was published after the Liberal Democrats submitted a Freedom of Information request to Network Rail, the owner and infrastructure manager of most of the railway network in Great Britain. The party is calling for a freeze on rail fares due to poor service.

My sister-in-law is still chasing a refund for the train ticket she purchased at a three-figure sum for a putative trip up from Surrey to Yorkshire to visit us the other week. As the sun rose on that fateful Saturday morning, she learned that Thameslink, the mainline rail service that runs through London from Brighton to Bedford, was besieged by engineering works and delays were to be expected.

She worked out an alternative route, involving an eye-wateringly expensive taxi journey across the capital to reach Kings Cross for the train to Doncaster, where I was to collect her by car – there being no direct trains between here and Barnsley, even though there are only 17 miles between these two South Yorkshire locations.

Then, worse news broke. There were to be no trains between Kings Cross and the North of England/Scotland until at least mid-day, due to damage to overhead wires near Hitchin in Hertfordshire. Passengers were advised not to travel.

As an anxious traveller, my poor sister-in-law, who only visits two or three times a year, became totally overwhelmed by stress and decided she simply couldn't face even setting off, because Kings Cross would be bedlam. Or even closed due to overcrowding, as it sometimes is. She’s hoping to reschedule her trip for September.

My son, who regularly goes up and down from Doncaster to visit his girlfriend in London, knows only too well that taking a train always means taking a gamble. Last December, on his way home one Friday evening, the already delayed train inexplicably stopped outside Retford for three hours.

He finally arrived at Doncaster at 1am, and the train terminated. No onward transport, replacement buses or any form of help from train company LNER. I had to leave a family 18th birthday party to go and wait for him, but there were scores of people stranded at the station in the middle of the night, including young women on their own.

Every family has terrible tales to tell of travelling on the rail network. Not all cancellations and delays are the result of staff action; the infrastructure is ageing and prone to fail, especially during periods of extreme weather, and rolling stock often ancient, with not enough carriages at busy times.

It would be wonderful to have a railway we could all rely on. And with clear and transparent ticket prices too, that didn’t require re-mortgaging the house.

Labour’s manifesto included a proposed Plan for Rail, promising extensive reforms and investments aimed at modernising the sector. The plan talks about the importance of a strong rail system to foster economic growth, the development of a long-term strategy for rolling stock and a commitment to a low-carbon network. We shall see.

No doubt the threat of such changes will already be upsetting the train drivers, and may well have been a deciding factor in the proposed award of such a generous pay increase. Meanwhile, passengers are left waiting on the platform.