“It was another part of the victim mentality - they couldn’t influence it. One of the very first things we are doing in the new organisation is to make sure that in each of these regions we have somebody who clearly owns the timetable.”
So, you are disaggregating timetabling and train planning alongside IP?
“We are not disaggregating production at the moment because right now, where the handle is turned is not as important as who is doing the turning! This December is the first timetable for several years which hasn’t been constrained by the capacity of NR to process change. So the last thing I want to do is chuck the way we do production up in the air, until it’s really stable and passengers are getting the service enhancements they’ve been promised.
“Next year is the year to look more fully at how we do timetabling, because we would have had the Williams Review, plus we will have had my experiment of actually giving ownership of timetabling to the Routes, and we will be doing some things with operators being given direct access to our systems. A sensible year of trialling some things in 2019, and then next year taking fundamental decisions on how we should do it, in the light of those trials.
So, it will stay centralised until at least then?
“The regions will take over the process two timetables down the line. They will work with TOCs and then hand over their joint efforts to Milton Keynes to actually deliver the nuts and bolts.”
Haines really is unafraid of controversy and his open honesty will, for some people, take some getting used to. The expression ‘unvarnished truth’ springs to mind. I remark that during franchise considerations thus far, NR has been a consultee and not a signatory to the finished timetables as signed off by Government.
“From what I have seen, I’ve seen limited evidence of Network Rail actively trying to fix problems. What I saw is evidence of Network Rail simply saying certain timetables wouldn’t work,” he replies.
“NR didn’t actually come to the party and say ‘but this is what we could do instead’. In a grown-up world we can’t keep saying ‘won’t work, won’t work, won’t work’. We have to get in there and say what will work. That’s what we will be doing with future timetables.
“We do see some silly business where the function of the contract means that operators end up obliged to specify; to bid what’s in their specification even if they know it won’t work. And at the moment, the system doesn’t stop them doing that.
“What we are trying to do is to put in place NR people with accountability who will say ‘that won’t work and you know it won’t work’. And we’ll offer alternatives that will work.”
He explains that he wants to create a new generation of informed, confident managers committed to actually making the system work. I tell him that I once asked US freight supremo and former English Welsh & Scottish Railway chief Ed Burkhardt how he secured such incredible loyalty and commitment from staff not just here, but in the US, where I personally saw some incredible commitment. Ed’s reply was: “It’s easy Nigel. You just find really great people - and then get out of their way!”
Will Haines give his emerging new generation of leaders licence to make mistakes?
“You have to, don’t you?” he answers easily, without hesitation. “Who are the people that don’t make mistakes? They are the ones who don’t do anything! There is a real danger that such a system actually rewards mediocrity. The easiest way to survive in that environment is to keep your head down and not try new things.”
I know it’s early days, but are you seeing changes?
“I’m seeing huge amounts of willingness in the industry actually to work with Network Rail.”
I meant internally, within Network Rail?
“Absolutely in Network Rail! I’m seeing lots of NR people who want to be more creative - they recognise they can only succeed if they work closely with their operator and colleagues.”
Which again was Rob McIntosh’s point - the system doesn’t make that either easy or straightforward. What about consistency? I remember former CEO Iain Coucher making it very clear to everyone that ‘there can’t be five best ways of doing something’ - that you have to have similar jobs done the same way…?
“That is only true of certain things. Who was it who used to say there is only one best way of slicing cheese?! There are certain commoditisation things where that is absolutely true and my solution to that is that the regional MDs and the new organisations have a seat at the senior table. In selecting them and in performance-managing them, they will be responsible for Network Rail as a whole first and foremost, and then for their region. They will have collective responsibly - and to do that you have to have grown-up people who are prepared to behave like that.”
Haines uses the standards question to illustrate his point.
“We will have strong, regional engineering directors in each of the five regions and they will work in cabinet responsibility with a chief engineer at the centre. They will collectively own the standards. At the moment, somebody at the centre dictates the standard, regardless of the consequences of that standard, and they seek to minimise the risk in that standard.
“That can’t be right - for the railway to run effectively you have to run it as a system, and we have to look at overall system risk. That for me is fundamental for how those standards operate. You have to have a joined-up view of how these standards play across the piece, and establish if a change of one standard has an impact - unintentionally or otherwise - on other standards.”
So, how will you break down the permafrost in the middle - those who will listen to what you say in silence - and then carry on precisely as they have always done?
“We change that by sending very clear signals of what is important. You measure delivery by outcomes, and you have honest conversations with the people who are not pulling their weight. So, I want every single person in NR to be influenced by the National Rail Passenger Satisfaction survey. If you are entitled to a performance incentive element to your pay, then that will flex up or down according to NRPS scores.
“Are passengers feeling better or worse about the railway? Forget all the fancy metrics - just what is passenger sentiment like? Because over 20 years, what 30,000 people think tends not to lie - it’s a pretty decent barometer. It would be a simple way of saying to people this is what matters - it directly affects everyone. What is it that people are really feeling about the railway?”
Haines is absolutely focused on the customer. And for the passenger, who pretty much takes safety for granted, that means punctuality.
“Punctuality is king because it’s about our competence to run a railway,” he says. “It’s not just about what passengers expect, it’s about the pride we have in what we do.
“I think we’ve lost ground on that territory as an industry in the last seven or eight years. I will talk a heck of a lot more about that, because I think it is the glue that holds us together and the thing that fundamentally starts to shape people’s perceptions of the railway.
“If they think it’s reliable then their inclination is to use it, to pay more, and to support it when things go wrong.”
OPERATING THE RAILWAY
Operating the railway is coming under renewed scrutiny under Haines’ leadership. At the RAIL 100 Breakfast Club in London on January 24, he spoke with power and eloquence about how he believes operating has been neglected and run down as a skill within NR, and that this must change… quickly.
He is explicitly critical that previous understandable focus on engineering has made operating the “poor relation”, and that balance needs to be restored. And it is here that Haines speaks openly about lack of operating knowledge and experience within NR’s senior ranks, and the impact this has had.
“When you have a corporate vision called ‘engineering excellence’, it should come as no surprise that operations have been eclipsed.
“Let me be very direct, I am the first chief executive of Network Rail or Railtrack since John Edmonds to have any previous rail experience. I have huge respect for my predecessors, many of whom have brought world-class engineering capability, but if you think you can run a congested railway simply by having fantastic assets then you’re kidding yourself, because we carry passengers. We are Britain’s biggest neighbour so we also have trespass - sadly we are also subject to suicides. We also have trees, level crossings - you know our problems. We are much more than just an asset portfolio.”
