RAIL UNION RMT warned today that the impact of the floods on the West Coast Main Line exposes the potentially fatal flaws in Network Rail's plans to axe 1448 maintenance jobs – with 679 of those planned job cuts targeted at the West Coast route.
A landslip at Southwaite on Friday morning led to a temporary suspension of the West Coast Main Line but thanks to immediate action by Network Rail crews the line was soon re-opened. Maintenance crews have battled for long hours in atrocious conditions to keep rail services running.
Bob Crow, RMT General Secretary, said:
"The flooding in the North West and across other parts of the country has reinforced the importance of having a fully-crewed rail maintenance team able to respond to peaks of demand and run by people who understand engineering and not by bureaucrats and accountants shuffling numbers on balance sheets.
"There is no doubt that it is the sheer hard work and commitment of rail staff, slogging it out in atrocious conditions, that has kept services running and re-opened blocked lines. I pay tribute to them and to our emergency services who have once again shown that they are the best in the world.
"RMT is today calling on Network Rail to recognise the potentially lethal consequences of cutting corners on rail maintenance and axing jobs to fit budgets rather than the needs of our railways and to scrap their cuts plans."
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