Rail minister Lord Peter Hendy has said all trains in the north of England are "clapped out" and need replacing, describing this as one of the benefits passengers would see as a result of the Government's rail reforms.
Speaking at the Railway Industry Association's annual conference in London on Wednesday, Lord Hendy said the creation of Great British Railways (GBR), which will bring responsibility for tracks and trains under a single organisation for the first time since privatisation in the mid-1990s, would help get all parts of the rail network "on the same page".
He said the country's railways have previously been operating in "silos" for years and there was a "culture of blame" within the industry.
Replacing northern trains
Asked how the changes will impact passengers, the minister said: "I think one of the things that the railway urgently needs to fix, rather than just putting it in a long wish list... Every train in the north of England's clapped out."
"We need to replace them all," he added. "That's a really serious investment choice and actually GBR and the Government will have to face it head on."
Lord Hendy said looking at the present rolling stock park and how it might best be used over a number of years is "something that will affect customers".
Rolling stock failures
He criticised past inefficiencies, saying: "There's nothing more stupid than watching some trains halfway through their lives that have been parked in a field, when they're put back into service miserably failing on a daily basis because the industry wasn't coherent enough to send them from the place they weren't needed anymore overnight to the next place that they were."
"You can't believe how stupid that is," he said. "The Great Western has been devastated in Devon and Cornwall by trains that have been sitting in the open air for three years. They don't work properly. We can do better at that."
Cyber security concerns
During the event, Lord Hendy also said he was "alive" to concerns about cyber security within the British rail network. "You look at the threats in the modern world and cyber security and invasion of people's systems is a principal threat," he said.
"The Government has a sophisticated view across the whole piece about what needs to be done in cyber security. The railway is very much part of that."
He added: "We are very much on it. I don't worry about it but I am concerned about it but I know that the Government, together with the principal actors, Network Rail and GBR, as it comes, will be very much alive to it."
Great Western Railway, which operates mainline services from the capital to the west of England, will be the next train operator to go into public ownership in December. GWR was contacted for comment.
