Saving The Tracks

Russ Yorkshire

December 22, 2025

Let’s have this straight, once and for all.

Every Christmas the same ritual plays out: headlines screaming “rail chaos”, passengers tutting at Euston like the railway personally cancelled Christmas, and armchair experts declaring that “Germany manages fine, why can’t we?”

Because we’re not Germany. Or France. Or some neat little grid-shaped network built with space, foresight, and decades of consistent funding.

We’re a small, overcrowded island running a Victorian railway that’s been flogged within an inch of its life for over a century. Tracks laid when Queen Victoria was still breathing are now expected to carry half a million trains a day, in all weathers, at speeds Brunel never dreamed of—while people still expect Swiss punctuality and Ryanair prices.

Something has to give. And it isn’t safety.

So yes, the work gets done at Christmas. Not because rail bosses hate families or enjoy ruining festive plans, but because it’s the only window where you can shut down key arteries without paralysing the entire economy. No trains roaring through, no commuters stacked ten deep, no shortcuts. Just brutal, surgical engineering—130 track panels at a time—done properly, not bodged with another speed restriction and crossed fingers.

And spare me the “Europe does it differently” line. Europe didn’t spend decades playing mend-and-make-do while kicking investment down the track. Europe didn’t privatise, fragment, underfund, panic, overcorrect, then pretend none of it happened. We’re still paying for that legacy—sometimes literally with lives, as Hatfield grimly proved.

What really gets glossed over? The people in orange.

While everyone else is pulling crackers, they’re pulling 12-hour shifts in the cold, missing kids, grandkids, and turkey dinners—paid more, yes, but not enough to buy back time. They’re not villains in this story; they’re the reason the system doesn’t finally snap.

You want the work spread out? Fine. Enjoy year-round disruption instead of one concentrated hit.

You want it cheaper? Fine. Accept slower trains and more faults.

You want it safer, faster, and reliable? Then accept that sometimes Christmas comes with buses.

This isn’t incompetence. It’s the cost of running one of the most intensively used railways in Europe on infrastructure older than sliced bread—while pretending we can upgrade it without pain.

You can’t modernise a Victorian system without getting your hands dirty. And sometimes, that dirt lands right in the middle of Christmas.

Uncomfortable truth? Absolutely.

Necessary?

Also yes.

© Russ Yorkshire 2025

Image created with Grok by xA

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