Forum
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Modern Railways, Transport Writing Services, PO Box 206, Tunbridge Wells North TN1 2XA
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With railway timetabling processes currently front and centre in the national press, people are wondering how things have got quite so bad as they have, and exactly why this has been allowed to happen. Alan Williams absolutely nails it in your July issue; the centralisation of core timetabling functions to Milton Keynes in 2007-08 was a catastrophic miscalculation, and much long-earned experience was permanently lost.
The full impact of this has only gradually emerged, as more and more experienced staff in the Network Rail Train Planning teams have moved on, to be replaced by staff recruited ‘off the street’. There has been a steadily growing deficit of knowledge concerning local geography, signalling constraints and, increasingly, operator and customer requirements. Complex station workings are now …
