TRAIN OF THOUGHT
Once more into the trough
GOVERNMENTS come and go, while prime ministers and key ministerial posts change even more often. Over the past two decades, for example, both main political parties have been in office and between them there have been seven prime minsters – two for Labour and five for the Conservatives.
So much change so quickly is generally bad for the railway industry, which needs decisions and commitment lasting much longer periods. What we end up with, therefore, are spells of boom and bust, where those in charge can have widely differing opinions to their predecessors about the value of our network for both passenger and freight traffic. And it would seem that now we are entering a ‘bust’ phase of the cycle.