The Awful Truth about the SRA

In the January 2003 edition of Modern Railways (dead-tree only, I'm afraid), George Hudson puts the boot into the Strategic Rail Authority:

In short, the SRA has become a bloated, grotesque quango - perhaps the biggest in the country, and certainly the most expensive. It has an appalling split personality; in terms of delivery it is a Soviet-style bureaucracy which periodically produces prolix consultation documents and ten year plans complete with the railway equivalent of tractor production targets. In terms of style and cost, it reflects some of the less attractive characteristics of modern capitalism, with high salaries, a top-heavy structure, and expensive consultancy as a substitute for coherent thinking - no decisions are made without spending vast amounts on advice, in many cases from people with scant knowledge or understanding of the industry; it is consultant heaven!

Of course, the railway was privofragmentised by those with scant knowledge or understanding of the industry. I wish John Major's liason with Edwina Currie had been uncovered earlier; perhaps then none of this would have happened.

Good article this month about Virgin's "Operation Princess" as well.