THE heady days of the Thirties have been invoked in a plea for engineers to be put back in charge of railways in Britain so that good quality work can be delivered.

Nigel Harris, managing editor of Rail magazine, was addressing the third annual conference organised by the watchdog Rail Passengers' Committee for the North-East.

The event took place at the National Railway Museum, York, within sight of GNER, Virgin and Arriva Northern trains using the east coast main line the day after the end of the latest 48-hour strike over pay by Arriva conductors.

Delegates included Ruth Annison, secretary of the Wensleydale Railway Association and chairman of the Settle to Carlisle Railway Business Liaison Group.

Mr Harris told 70 delegates from all over Yorkshire and the North-East that the ten-year plan announced by the Strategic Rail Authority could be a watershed for the industry.

SRA chairman Richard Bowker, who was unable to attend the York conference, has said the £60bn ten-year plan recognises decades of under-investment in railways and the need to make a fresh start after the problems of the last 12 months.

The plan envisages fewer rail franchises, more trains and improvements to their performance, increased staff training, a national test track for new trains, more secure and welcoming stations and a railway academy to renew the skill base in the industry.

Mr Harris said that after the then British Railways Board squandered £17m on a modernisation plan in the Fifties, it took 40 years for the Treasury to get over the shock and to be persuaded that it was worth trusting railways again.

He told delegates that the SRA could only make a case for further investment in railways if the system in place at present could be made to run better.

"The plan intends to cut the number of train operators but it will do nothing to eliminate flaws in the contract system. It is time for a return to some traditional railway thinking.

"There is plenty that is good in the plan but the industry needs leadership to place conflicting priorities in some sort of order."

Pointing to difficulties in producing new trains and getting them into service, Mr Harris recalled the achievement of Sir Nigel Gresley, chief mechanical engineer of the London and North Eastern Railway, in designing a new streamlined locomotive for the prestige Silver Jubilee express on the east coast line through Darlington and Northallerton.

Silver Link was put through trials and into service within a few months in 1935 and the rest of the class, including the record-breaking Mallard, remained the mainstay of east coast expresses until the diesel era of 100mph and more in the Sixties.

Mr Harris said: "The SRA plan must get a more reliable railway but also make it an attractive career. There must be engineering driven by good quality work."

Warning that railways faced a sophisticated battle for hearts and minds, as well as money from a "hard nosed" Treasury, Mr Harris said: "I don't think the railway industry has learned to invest money in a powerful lobbying organisation.

"When you consider the road and airline lobbies, it's pathetic. Railways have never got to grips with lobbying and show no sign of doing it."

Brian Burdsall, director of Serco Rail, which is involved in operating franchises, was uncertain whether the SRA plan would give confidence to bidders. There could be cost escalations when some operators were already running at a loss.

Mrs Annison said later: "The uncertainty we have encountered because of Arriva's problems appears to be very widespread. There is an obvious need to sort out the railway industry for the sake of everyone's livelihoods."

She added: "It is amazing what goodwill there is towards railways, even when so many individuals' lives are inconvenienced. The reality is that most train services work extremely well although there are problems.

Mrs Annison said there was widespread dissatisfaction with the SRA plan for two rail franchises in the North.

She said the Settle to Carlisle business group and the Friends of the line were pressing Arriva Northern for an early announcement on reinstatement of a through train over the scenic route to Glasgow, eliminating the need to change at Carlisle.

The service ran once a day each way until last November, when Arriva replaced a number of trains with buses because of a shortage of drivers.