Does it really take nine railway workers to change just one plug socket?
UK Transport Secretary Grant Shapps is involved in a bitter war of words with the RMT rail union over what he describes as "obsolete working practices".
It has been reported that simple tasks such as changing a plug socket can take a team of nine.
The Telegraph ran an article last week where rail-industry sources shed new light on the alleged inefficiencies which are costing taxpayers billions of pounds.
Specialist teams refusing to share vans and engineers being unable to cross area boundaries to do a job are among the working practices that union chiefs are determined to defend, the sources claimed.
One explained: "We can't roster individuals. Let's imagine you want to change a single socket to a double in your own kitchen. Potentially you'd need an electrician, a tiler and a plumber as your dishwasher waste pipe will need adjusting too. Alternatively, you could find a competent odd-jobber to do the whole task.
"In Network Rail, we can't roster individuals - only teams. And we can't multi-skill those teams so we'd need to send a team of three electricians, three tilers and three plumbers - nine people to do a job one person could do.
Fixing common infrastructure faults
"Eighty per cent of the most common infrastructure faults could be fixed by small, multi-skilled teams."
The Telegraph adds that Andrew Haines, chief executive of Network Rail, said that "poor productivity" had become deeply entrenched throughout the railways.
The boss went on: "We are such an archaic industry in many of our working practices we can offer a good pay rise to our colleagues and good value for the taxpayer if only we can get sensible reforms in."
Mr Shapps said earlier this month that the railway system could not be modernised by "clinging on to obsolete working practices from the past".
He added: "New technology is replacing old - in some cases, centuries-old.
"For example, we're replacing Victorian signalling with digital systems which means we can fit more trains on the line. As tracks get used more intensively, maintenance becomes even more critical.
"And new technology is helping here, too. The best way of checking track for defects is to fit sensors on trains. Each takes 70,000 pictures a minute - finding tiny flaws in the track that no human eye can see.
More dangerous for staff
"But the unions still want this job to be done today as it was done in the steam age, by sending people out to walk along the track, looking at the rails. That is not only less likely to pick up faults before they become dangerous, but it's also more dangerous for staff."
However, RMT general secretary Mick Lynch has accused Mr Shapps of "talking nonsense" and being “completely ignorant” of how the railways work.
He added: "It is false that that Sunday working practices have not been updated since 1919. In many (railway) companies, we have agreements that Sunday forms part of the working week.
"Network Rail has not suggested breaking up maintenance teams. They exist because they are safety-critical, with specialist skills and are all drastically different from one another.
"Maintenance workers can work across boundaries as instructed by the company, but they only work across railway regions in emergencies. This is because the engineering assets in (other) regions can be very different and the staff may not have the training or competencies to deal with those engineering assets.
"This is both a safety and engineering-standards issue - and Network Rail has never put a proposal to RMT to work across regions and many of their maintenance managers are actually opposed to this idea."
Mr Lynch also added that it was an "utter fallacy" that RMT members would not travel in vans together.