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The Prosser Perspective.... a weekly column from Dover and Deal MP Gwyn Prosser.

18 June 2009

If all goes well and I can escape for a few hours from the Borders Citizenship and Immigration Bill for a few hours on Thursday I intend joining the High Speed Train at St Pancras for the so-called preview journey to Kent and back again. By the end of the year we’ll be able to enjoy high speed trains from London all the way to Dover our promotional trip will turn around in Ashford.

When I first moved to Dover in 1979 we had to put up with those ancient carriages with drop windows that rattled their way through Kent and often took as much as two hours to get to from London to Dover. Thankfully the old rolling stock was gradually replaced and I had the privilege of ‘christening’ the first of the new Class 375 trains in Priory Station, naming it ‘White Cliffs Country’ and then making the inaugural journey to London with the bosses.

I readily agreed to travel from Westminster to perform this duty as long as Connex South Easter, the train operators could guarantee getting me back to London for my 2 pm Ministerial with the then Home Secretary, David Blunkett.

Well, the ceremony and speeches went without a hitch, the new train departed exactly on time but from then on everything started to go wrong, The electronically controlled clutch system kept failing, the train kept losing speed and stopping and consequently we were over half an hour late arriving in Victoria Station and I had to send my apologies to the Home Secretary and re-arrange my meeting.

I’m pleased to say that those clutch failures were only teething problems and the 375s have served us well ever since – but not under the original train operator. Connex’s poor performance in their wider operations led them to lose their franchise and the service was taken into public ownership under the South East Trains label. I welcomed this re-nationalisation of this small part of the railway network – but it wasn’t to last.

That venture into public ownership of the railways was widely publicised but another such Government buy-back has just occurred which has not attracted much attention and which will come as a surprise to many of the guests taking part in Thursday’s high speed sprint to Ashford. The Government has just announced it’s taking Eurostar into public ownership along with the London & Continental Railways s Ltd (LCR).

LCR also owns High Speed 1 Ltd, the company which operates the newly developed St Pancras International Station together with the whole of the high speed line to the Channel Tunnel. I’d be happy to see the Eurostar service developed as a cooperative venture with other European state–owned railways for the benefit of the public and the staff rather than lining the pockets of the share holders and the bankers – but I’m not holding my breath.

As for Thursday, they’ve assured me they’ll get me back to London in good time and I’m not going to allow my bad experience with the private sector operator, Connex to put me off.