NEW RESEARCH by rail union RMT has revealed that nearly half of the maintenance job cuts planned by Network Rail are targeted at the West Coast Main Line, a franchise operated by Virgin Trains and the busiest rail corridor on the entire UK system.
Detailed information received by RMT has confirmed that 1448 jobs on Network Rail maintenance have now been identified for the axe. 650 of those posts are on the West Coast Main Line (WCML).
WCML has been plagued with problems since a multi-billion pound upgrade that have hit services hard. Those repeated infrastructure failures have required additional input from maintenance crews on a regular basis. RMT are warning that the line will be thrown into "total chaos" if the proposed job cuts are allowed to go through.
Network Rail was fined £14 million for engineering overruns at Rugby over the Christmas and New Year period 2007/2008. There have been repeated rows over who is responsible for poor service delivery with Virgin Trains.
WCML is forecast to be running at full capacity by the end of the next decade, increasing the maintenance demand on the route.
Bob Crow, RMT General Secretary, said:
"With the well-documented history of infrastructure problems and failures on the West Coast Main Line it simply defies all logic that Network Rail could even be considering axing 650 maintenance jobs as part of their national cost reduction plan.
"We should also remember that the Grayrigg disaster occurred on the WCML and that reports into that incident fingered systemic problems with the maintenance regime. Under those circumstances alone it beggars belief that Network Rail could be even considering hundreds of maintenance job cuts.
"RMT is committed to fighting the national jobs cull across Network Rail and we will be drawing in political and public support across the country for what is an important battle for safety and reliability on the rail network."
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