Thursday 24 September 2020

Coronavirus diary, Thursday 24 September


The latest edict telling people to work from home is another blow for Britain's transport industry.

Train, coach and bus services are already running way below capacity with drastic cuts having to be made.

Britain's rail service is undergoing sweeping changes; privatisation is out, replaced temporarily by a new form of nationalisation.

The government has taken over the industry's finances, letting companies run it on a day-to-day basis.


Mistakes made years ago by franchising services and routes to train operators and setting up a separate organisation, Railtrack, responsible for track and stations, was an unfolding disaster.

Companies, having to guess likely passenger totals years ahead, set impossible targets that threatened ruin, resulting in them being replaced.

Coronavirus was the last straw. Passenger numbers plunged 70 percent in lockdown and with the government now telling people not to travel unless essential the industry is in crisis.


The bus and coach services are in a similar plight, dropping outside London by 50 percent, threatening the jobs of thousands of the 220,000 bus drivers and staff.

Cardiff city council's bus company is sacking  hundreds of employees.

The industry is calling on the government for a billion pound bale out in addition to the five billion promised over five years.

With the latest restrictions due to last six months the transport industries face an even longer road to recovery.

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