"It Was A Disaster!" Nick Tears Into Rail Director Defending New Timetable

6 September 2018, 15:29

Nick Ferrari labelled Southern Rail's new timetable as "a disaster," after a senior rail official attempted to defend the change as "ambitious."

Robert Nisbet, the Regional Director at the Rail Delivery Group, joined Nick Ferrari in the studio to discuss the state of Britain's rail industry.

And during their conversation, Nick asked Mr Nisbet how the problems with Southern Rail would be solved.

Mr Nisbet admitted: "There are problems around the network.

"We believe that the ingredients that go towards making a sustainable and comfortable railway network are there, we just think that it needs to be looked again at how all of those bits fit together.

"I mean look at the new timetable [introduced in May 2018,] - the ambition was there."

At this point Nick interrupted: "It was calamitous. That's absurd. That's like talking about Arnhem - the ambition was there but it cost thousands of lives.

"It didn't work, it's the same with this. There's wide spread unrest, appalling for people in the north and even demonstrations on platforms, you can't just say it was ambitious it was it was a disaster!"

Mr Nesbit replied: "I reflect that in some parts it didn't go well at all and we apologise to those customers."