RailStaff: Editors Comment: January 2005
28 Jan 2005
The tsunami disaster in the Indian Ocean throws every thing else into stark relief this new year. Our own charity the Railway Children responded with an immediate grant and more widely railway staff, like the public, have made quite enormous donations to the aid effort being mobilised across Asia.
It is heartening to know that people are prepared to help those bereft of food and shelter so far away. Moreover it shows we are interested in and mindful of the rest of the world. So often we are told to concentrate on the job in hand. HRH Prince Charles was criticised last year for lamenting that people no longer knew their place. We too are told by rail bosses to confine ourselves to reporting on railway machinery and business developments only.
We have no intention of doing this. RailStaff, as the name suggests, is about the people who work on our railways and their concerns, interests and triumphs. For us, our readers will always be more than simply train cleaners, ticket sellers, reachstackers, fitters, roster clerks and secretaries.
Their concerns, their drama, from health to jobs to religion, bravery and sport are our concerns. We may not always like what they say but we are committed to reporting it. Ultimately the success of a company or an industry depends on people who think outside their own remit, who have ideas and drive and determination.
If Bill Shipley and Alan Galley had not stuck to their guns in their long and acrimonious attempt to buy Freightliner, we would not now have a modern freight company which has created over 400 new jobs and attracted £300 million of new money into railways. Galley was awarded an OBE.
Similarly railway secretary, Elsa Redpath, receives an MBE this year. Elsa is no less important than Alan. Chris Green and his team’s ability to function effectively has been greatly enhanced by Redpath’s guidance, organisation and wisdom. The MBE recognises that.
A free society prospers when people with ideas have the courage to express them. The next idea you have, could be of crucial importance. Never feel it should remain unspoken because train dispatchers, signallers and people like you aren’t supposed to do things like that.
Never confine yourself to the role someone else has defined for you. We have no intention of doing that as a newspaper. Let’s look forward to another year of advancing the knock about commerce of ideas, the essential circuit training of any free society.