FREE trade must be regulated. Unfettered capitalism runs itself to the ground. It is safer and wiser to let government have a strong hand in awarding and punishing private businesses who serve the general public. This is the mantra of current political wisdom and, although it sounds sensible in principle, I discovered this week that the regulation of one privatised system in particular – the rail network – can lead to tears of laughter and despair.
My parents live in the far-flung tundra-town of Wick, and my girlfriend and I decided to pay a festive visit by train. From Glasgow Queen Street there are only three services a day. The train trip takes over eight hours, due to surrealisms such as
visiting the same station (Georgemas Junction) twice on every trip, in both directions.
The winds in Caithness are almost lunar in speed and force, and even though there are probably only four or five trees left on that barren plateau, they have a habit of flinging themselves Anna Karenina-style between the wheels – thus reducing the train's speed drastically and also placing passengers (ie me) in mortal terror.
All of this conspires to make the scheduled connection times at Inverness an exercise in absurdity. On the return trip to Glasgow the amount of time you have between stumbling from the last Wick train on to the last Glasgow train is a mere five minutes.
Naturally, after trees, winds and other dastardly forces of nature, girlfriend and I arrived in Inverness 20 minutes late, having missed our connection. I took this up with the platform steward.
"Look, they called already to say we'd be late! Couldn't you have waited? There are only three connecting trains a day. I mean it's not like you've got anything else happening here. This is Inverness, not Grand Central station."
To which I was politely informed that the trains must leave at their exact scheduled time otherwise the government regulators fine the operators £100 a minute. This is called 'performance', and sounds a lot like the system that wrecked the NHS. In fact, to avoid punitive fines which run into millions, train companies have been fiddling with their timetables, adding minutes, to give a false impression that their punctuality has improved. But not in Inverness, where by hitting their targets they seem to be deliberately missing the entire raison d'être, which is to connect the Highlands to the rest of the world.
"So what the hell do we do now?" I asked.
"Well. It's still today, so we have to get you to your destination today."
"How?" I screamed. "By bloody taxi?"
The reply was astounding. "Well, yes. But first we'll get you on the sleeper to Stirling then we'll pay for your taxi to your home in Glasgow."
Three hours, a sleeper and a luxurious one-hour taxi ride later, I had collapsed from sheer disbelief. I asked how much the train company would be paying for the taxi – £70. And our tickets had only cost £50.
"This happens all the time," the driver said. "You wouldn't believe it."
My god, I thought, how can a country function like this? The only targets it's hitting are human ones. Can we just have total state control or total privatisation, please? The third way is derailed.
