By Paul Homewood
Weather-related train disruption has decreased over the past few years despite the Network Rail chief executive claiming climate change is “the biggest challenge our railway faces”, The Telegraph can reveal.
On Wednesday, the state-owned company said it would be spending £2.8 billion to help it cope better with extreme weather and climate change.
Its plans include training rail staff as “amateur meteorologists” and buying weather forecasting services that are accurate to within 500 metres.
Andrew Haines, the Network Rail chief executive, also said extreme weather had “taken its toll” on the network.
Yet data analysis by The Telegraph reveals that, for the last three years, the proportion of delays attributed to “weather, autumn and structure” has been decreasing.
“Weather, autumn and structure” covers delays caused by natural phenomena such as high wind or heavy rain, as well as autumn leaf fall. Leaf debris causes braking problems for trains, similar to the way in which ice causes cars to skid.
The increased climate spending pledge calls into question how wisely Network Rail is using its £45.4 billion budget for the next five years.
In 2020-21, train delays caused by “severe weather, autumn and structures” made up 10.3 per cent of all delay minutes counted by regulators, according to figures from the Office of Rail and Road (ORR) analysed by The Telegraph.
By last year that share had declined to 7.7 per cent – just over a million minutes – out of 2023’s total train delays of 13.7 million minutes.
Andrew Montford, the science writer and author of The Hockey Stick Illusion, said: “The kinds of weather that affect rail services are not getting worse. Winters are milder, wind speeds are falling, and extreme rainfall has barely changed. What is getting worse is the tendency of official bodies to make foolish statements about climate change.”