As for how private security fits into the railways, it’s not possible to attempt more than a snapshot, writes Mark Rowe, because not only is private security changing all the time, and the threats, but so are the railways never at a standstill.
It may feel the railways are at a standstill, if your train is cancelled, for whatever reason (due to nature or man-made). Organisationally, financially and in terms of morale, the railways are in a state, as any regular passenger can see. I’d like to focus on two things: one that has an influence on railways resilience, and the perennial issue of football hooligans on Saturdays.
I was among travellers disrupted on Thursday, September 28, by the single tree that fell on the main west coast line from Carlisle to Glasgow, near Moffat. That overnight event (I was on the first train of the day, that stopped at Lockerbie) was enough to block the line for the whole day. Passengers were advised to use the east coast main line, which would add hours to their journey. A lot of disruption caused by one tree, that came down in high wind (hardly an exception in Scotland). While the security services speak darkly of Russian interference with Britain’s critical national infrastructure, consider that the Department for Transport, and Network Rail which operates the track, are doing the Russians’ sabotage work for them, by not cutting back trees and bushes beside and in between the tracks, which inevitably will come down in stormy weather (and will blow leaves on the line, sometimes enough to force train stock out of service) that on electrified lines like the west coast will bring down the overhead lines also, causing further repair cost and delay; entirely predictable and avoidable.
Financially, the railways are not quite back where they were, before the covid pandemic drastically reduced travel (though the state paid to keep the timetable running). Weekend leisure travel is relatively booming, as anyone packed into a carriage into Birmingham, Edinburgh or London on a Saturday can testify. While away football fans in the morning on their way to a match are well-behaved enough (as are the groups of women going to party in cities – both are drinking alcohol from an early hour), by evening trains can become zoo-like. British Transport Police (BTP) and rail staff may differ in their ideas. BTP may want to keep the hooligans on trains, and an eye kept on them, and get them to their destination; rail staff may feel that abusive and aggressive hooligans forfeit their right to stay on the train or stations. Like territorial forces, BTP needs every officer on duty and will only arrest someone if absolutely necessary. Small wonder that ticket checks on trains feel far from regular, less so than pre-covid, due to demoralised staff, which not only has implications for revenue protection; if travellers are not paying, that may only be storing potential flashpoints for when rail operators do try harder to bring in revenue; and those not paying to travel may feel empowered to get away with other wrong-doing, littering, vaping, spraying graffiti and the like.
BTP, whose budget for 2024-25 is £395m, is funded by the rail industry. To state the obvious, that means police get deployed where the demand is, whether geographically or by times of day, week or season (Ebor races at York, events at Wembley Stadium, or Cardiff’s Principality Stadium, and so on). It means that passengers have the certainty that if they text 6-101-6 (the number and the ‘see it-say it-sorted message is regularly broadcast on trains) and a BTP officer appears, he’ll be recognisable and look the same in St Ives or Inverness. Not so with the private security officers hired by train operators; they will have different coloured and looking uniforms, and kit; and no-one is coordinating the contract security provision, as travellers routinely change from trains and stations run by one operator, to another.
In a word, ‘fragmentation’, one of the national problems with the railways as spelt out by Transport Secretary Louise Haigh in a recent speech at Derby. She has promised a Railways Bill to go through Parliament to set up ‘Great British Railways – a directing mind running the railways as one system’, based in Derby. Understandably her speech about a ‘new era for our railways’ covered ticketing, staff relations, service performance, investment in rolling stock – nothing about private security. The potential, though, is for GBR and a reformed running of the railways – neither Network Rail which arose from privatisation of the 1990s, nor a return to nationalised British Rail of the 1940s to the 1990s – in terms of private security to bring the same national direction that BTP gets; and so that contract security and police complement each other, to plug gaps and get the most from spending.
Trials of ‘Integrated Security and Policing’ are already happening, mentioned as one of the ‘major projects and initiatives’ in the strategic plan of the British Transport Police Authority (BTPA), that oversees the BTP.
In the language of such documents, the plan states that a ‘safe and secure environment is the result of a partnership of policing, industry, security professionals, welfare organisations and the public. Rail reform provides the opportunity to deepen these partnerships to deliver policing and security in a more coordinated, effective and efficient way than ever. To quote again, the background is that the railways are an ‘attractive target for those who commit crime and exploit the vulnerable – organised crime gangs, including those who profit from County Lines models, sexual predators, terrorists’ and opportunists. The plan nowhere mentions beggars or the homeless, who historically may congregate around major stations, simply because it’s a liminal, dry and warm place where they can linger, and beg from passing travellers. For some years at London termini such as Euston and St Pancras-King Cross you can see the integration of uniformed private security and police: while police are visibly patrolling, the routine uniformed presence is by contractor such as SES Group, to answer the 101 queries of travellers (gone is the cultural assumption that if you want directions, you ask a bobby) and to move beggars and rough sleepers off the premises; even if, inevitably, they will return.
While labelled on their hi-vis vests as ‘welfare officers’, contract security officers carry out patrols on station platforms to prevent suicide attempts. Suicide prevention matters greatly on the railways and for BTP, not only in cold economic terms – a suicide on the line will mean trains cannot run – but for the loss of life; the emotional effects on bystanders, and train drivers. Hence training to security and other staff on the railways and to BTP, in managing suicidal contacts. The 2020 video on Youtube by the security firm STM Group remains as powerful a five minutes about the life-saving and life-affirming work of private security as any you could wish to hear. As the first uniformed officer related: “On the fateful day a lady just walked up to the station, trying to take her life. But God being so good I was here at the right time and I was able to prevent it. I was so determined not to let go of the woman.” It took him 15 minutes, ‘trying to calm her down before the police came. It gave me a different mindset of life. I remember the way she was saying to me, no-one loves me, no-one cares about me. It got me thinking, we can do better in this society, showing love, to our loved ones, showing people that we really care. It goes a long way.’
Photo by Mark Rowe, Darlington, platform one, looking north. The north east region next year is running a festival to celebrate the 200th anniversary of rail. Visit https://sdr200.co.uk/.
