I caught the early train to London this morning after a 5am start in order to get to London Waterloo station by 0800.

A single train broke down on one stretch of track and disrupted several trains and probably several hundreds of commuters’ plans.

The train was diverted via a different route and we ended up arriving about half an hour late (on a 1hr 4o journey) which is about a 25% overrun on the planned activity.

The cost of everyone’s time, rescheduling meetings, possibily missing other travel connections including international flights and trains would likely have been in the tens of thousands (if anyone could measure it) but because the impact is dispersed into the community and people are by and large too busy of resigned to complain effectively, the rail operators are unlikely to do anything to improve their contingency and recovery plans for similar scenarios in future.

Granted, it is quite a feat of engineering to recover a train if it is derailed but when it is still on the track surely it’s just a question of speeding another motor along to push or pull it on to the next station, disembark passengers if necessary and then stick the broken bit in a siding until the rush hour is passed?  Or fixing it in situ.

It isn’t as though a train breaking down is a difficult to predict outcome for a rail operator?  It’s hardly a 7/7 scenario.

So is the rail system resilient?  One might argue (unconvincingly in my book) that by having the ability to divert other trains via another length of track around the problem that the network is “resilient enough” and one might also point to the costs involved in laying track, planning difficulties and so forth as excuses for a sub-standard performance in a developed country but none of these really wash.

I’m pretty convinced that the “by-pass” option was a happy coincidence since many parts of the network are choke points which if they failed would stop traffic dead.

As far as costs and planning as concerned, that argument is also dead in the water.  Just look at how much the govenrment has spent on the contingency of procuring millions of doses of H1N1 vaccine and the planning requirements to site the olympic park in London.  If there is a will there is a way.

The problem is that the UK is becoming a society where we expect underperformance.  We see and feel it everyday and the government spins its way out of failure so regularly and unashamedly that we now have a culture of  second best from the top down.

Instead of candidly facing the facts we get briefings that accentuate the positive – “we are going to prioritise innoculations to the highest priority groups” – in other words “we haven’t got enough vaccine for you lot so we will make sure we get ours and then appear to support a “vulnerable group” so you feel bad and can be pilloried if you complain”.

Similar problems exist in resilience, contingency and recovery planning across the road networks.

I was stuck on an arterial road for 6 hours a few weeks ago because of a car transporter fire.  Now admitedly it was a pretty big fire but half a dozen fire appliances with foam should have sorted it out in an hour or so allowing recovery from the site shortly thereafter to minimise the rubber-necking queue.  They could also have prevented cars from joining the queue by putting in effective diversions asap.  There are plenty of signs advising us of speed traps and not to drive while tired so why can’t we sort out a simple road disruption?  The answer is because there is a lack of will and a lack of resources – all the coppers are tyring to catch you using your mobile whilst stuck in a slow moving city centre queue to appease the strident lobbyists who’ve made telephoning or eating whilst driving worse than war crimes.

When transport disruptions occur, everyone affected puts their contingency plans in place (the mobile phone), rearranges their schedule, takes the loss on the chin and accepts that Britain isn’t what it used to be – like the football team, the banks, the politicians, their pensions, healthcare and so on.

Several years ago I used to work in the nuclear weapon business.  We had and still have pretty good plans in place to move them around the country or recover them if they fall of a truck somewhere.  The difference is the political impact and the perceived size of the hazard when a nuclear weapon is involved (which is infintessimally small unless someone nicks it).

In the policeman’s view a stationary queue of traffic is a safe queue of traffic – they can wait, we’ve got evidence to collect, paperwork to do and a shift changeover coming up.

Tax payers?   They can wait – keep their heads down but make sure theykeep paying their taxes.  It’s the MATRIX!