Network Rail to sell major stations?

[EM2]

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/b...atisation-in-bid-to-tackle-debt-a6886551.html

State-backed Network Rail is preparing to sell its biggest stations to developers and shopping centre landlords in its first substantial act of privatisation since moving on to the government’s books nearly 18 months ago.

Bankers at Citigroup have been hired to look at options for 18 major stations, such as London Waterloo, Reading, Leeds and Edinburgh Waverley, which most eye-catchingly include either outright sales or the handing of concessions to big firms that would last decades. Any sales, which could raise billions according to industry sources, would help to reduce Network Rail’s crippling debt, estimated to top £50bn by 2020, as well as streamline what is considered an overly complicated organisation.

Ministers want to overhaul Network Rail, which runs and maintains 20,000 miles of track and 40,000 bridges and tunnels, at a time when its largely Victorian-era infrastructure struggles to cope with the highest number of passengers travelling by train since the 1920s. Officials were shocked to discover the extent of Network Rail’s problems when it moved from being a semi-autonomous body to a formal part of government in September 2014, on the recommendation of the Office for National Statistics, to meet European accounting rules.

The Transport Secretary, Patrick McLoughlin, forced Network Rail to “pause” two major electrification projects on the Trans-Pennine and Midland Mainline routes last year following fears over spiralling construction costs. There have also been embarrassing engineering over-runs that have led to chaotic scenes during rush hours at London Bridge, King’s Cross and Paddington, and the organisation’s chairman, Richard Parry-Jones, was axed and replaced by the Transport for London commissioner Sir Peter Hendy last summer.

Network Rail, the Treasury and the Department for Transport have commissioned a series of reviews of the organisation and have asked advisers to raise money by selling chunks of a vast property portfolio. Space under railway arches is rented out to businesses such as motor workshops and nightclubs.

A review by Nicola Shaw, the highly regarded chief executive of the High Speed One link that runs from St Pancras in London to the Channel tunnel in Kent, is considering privatising the whole of Network Rail. The forthcoming report could also recommend it remains in the public sector, but allows infrastructure projects to be part-financed through private money.

Privatisation looks likely to start earlier through the sale of a number of large stations, though the candidates ripe for private ownership have not yet been identified. Birmingham New Street, Bristol Temple Meads, Manchester Piccadilly and Charing Cross in London are among the properties in this portfolio of bigger stations. Experts and ministers think that managing these stations has distracted Network Rail from its main task of making sure the track works properly and safely.

Not all stations would be sold, with several of them unavailable as they are undergoing substantial expansion work over the next five years. Options will also include asking firms to run just the shops in the stations, grouping several together for sale, or offering individual concessions.

The concession model has been used at St Pancras station. This is run by HS1, which in turn is managed by Canadian pension funds on a 30-year concession, having paid £2.1bn for the privilege in 2010.

A Network Rail source told The Independent on Sunday that Citi has been asked “to pull together options to realise best value from our stations”. The source added: “It could be just the retail; it could be a concession option like St Pancras. It could be some, could be all. It might be same answer for all or treating them individually.

“The point is there are lots of possibilities. Citi is testing the market so there will be lots of opinions out there and none of them right, as our board will make that decision some months down the line from now.”

But firms that bid against Citi for the work pointed out the hiring of a heavyweight US bank in Citi meant that sales were inevitable, given it tends to specialise in outright divestments rather than reviews. “They will gauge investor interest [in sales],” said a source.

A second source said: “Any concessions would have to be more than 10 years in order to attract companies to invest. Some of the older stations would need them to put in quite a lot of investment.”

This source added that Citi could see if train-operating companies, such as Virgin, would like to manage stations. The bankers could woo developers such as British Land, which owns the Broadgate office complex in the City of London, and shopping centre owners, such as California-based Westfield Group.

A Network Rail spokesman said: “Generating funds to invest in building a bigger, better railway is at the core of our disposals strategy. We’re taking a long hard look at our assets, ensuring we keep what we need to grow and expand the railway, but then looking at ways we can realise best value from the rest to reinvest.”

A couple of minor factual errors, the picture captioned as St Pancras is actually Waterloo, and St Pancras is owned by HS1 Ltd, not just run by them. In fact, it is managed for them by Network Rail.

 

[grumblingalong]

Initial reaction was to run and hide from further privatisation, but seeing how well StP is run these days there could be some positives from this.

 

[Llanigraham]

Reading the whole article, it sounds more like selling the "marketing rights/concessions" than the actual bricks and mortar.

 

[Jordeh]

I think it'll allow them to focus on their true purpose of running, maintaining and upgrading the railways rather than running shopping centres.

Plus it'll pay off a reasonable amount of their debt, probably a good idea.

 

[yorksrob]

I think it'll allow them to focus on their true purpose of running, maintaining and upgrading the railways rather than running shopping centres.

Plus it'll pay off a reasonable amount of their debt, probably a good idea.

The whole point of having shopping centres at stations is to make money for the railway. If we sell off the family silver, that income will be lost.

 

[323235]

Do a majority of network rail's debt not comes from running and expanding the railways and some of these assets actually bring in a good profit to prevent the debt from becoming an unlimited sinkhole

Does the nature of Network Rail's operates not means it will always accumulate such debt?

Also would anyone really want to own Network Rail when they have such a whopping debt? - re : privatisation

I think all this flogging off important revenue generating public assets is very dangerous for the long term prosperity of this country

The fact that George Osborne thinks China can spend its way out of shrinking economic growth is also laughable when this country and many others are having to do the total opposite to support economic growth

 

[Jordeh]

The whole point of having shopping centres at stations is to make money for the railway. If we sell off the family silver, that income will be lost.

It is inevitable that running these shopping centres takes up resources and priorities in Network Rail as it is a reasonable portion of their operations. If this could be focused elsewhere in the business and allows them to downsize a bit, I think it could result in a better railway which is ultimately what they exist for.

I also think it's likely that these stations and their shopping centres could be better ran by retail businesses, rather than a railway operator.

There is also the added bonus of significant income gained however to pay down the debt which will have interest payments.

 

[charley_17/7]

This doesn't make sense, no more than it did under Railtrack!

If you lease/concession off the property then you are giving away the potential income/profit you could have kept for yourself, and paid the debt off quicker!

 

[Lurpi]

Any sales, which could raise billions according to industry sources, would help to reduce Network Rail’s crippling debt, estimated to top £50bn by 2020, as well as streamline what is considered an overly complicated organisation.

This is the sort of half baked thinking which nearly destroyed the railway under Railtrack, and could do so again.

I've got a fair bit of experience of privatisation and outsourcing of railway and other infrastructure, and I can tell you emphatically that selling off or concessioning out stations is not going to streamline or simplify Network Rail in any way.

What it will do however is create a large and very jagged interface between Network Rail and up to 18 different station operators (who will probably be consortia of different firms, all with different agendas and priorities), between which error, dispute and misunderstanding has the risk to develop.

This will be different from TOCs managing NR-owned stations, because they'll have to invest serious capital for NR to make any money out of this. That means that probably billions of pounds of private capital will be at risk, which in turn means that the station owners/concessionaires will, just like Railtrack, prioritise protecting their return on capital over the safe and reasonable running of the railway.

So NR will have to manage relationships with all these people, it will have to monitor what's going on at these stations and it will have to no doubt set up joint working practices of some kind for when things go wrong.

And when things do go wrong, instead of quick and dirty common sense solutions being hammered out, you can be sure that the station operator won't do anything that puts them at legal risk or risks their investment. Cue much gnashing of teeth as trains get cancelled and stations get closed because this or that workaround would force them to lose money or leave them liable.

Talking of risk, it'll be interesting to see what the business models of these stations will be. They'll either be largely property-based, in which case property developers will be bidding for them, or they'll receive a fixed fee from NR/DfT for running the stations, or a mixture of both.

Either way, the private sector won't do it for less than a 10% internal rate of return on their investment. Money that could be ploughed back into the railway, but now won't be.

And that's before we get into the additional overheads of running the railway this will cause. The legal fees, the financial advisory fees, the consultancy fees, both during and after the sale/concession process is over, all of which will eventually be passed down to the same people who pay for the railway now, the taxpayer and farepayer.

Don't say I didn't warn you!

P.S. For what it's worth, retail income represented about 4.2% of NR's income in 2015 (retail £256 million, total revenue £6,087 million, according to the last annual report). Which is tiny, yes, but growing, and perhaps important in demonstrating NR's ability to run businesses able to cover their costs (i.e. not rail infrastructure) at a profit.

 

[DarloRich]

It is inevitable that running these shopping centres takes up resources and priorities in Network Rail as it is a reasonable portion of their operations. If this could be focused elsewhere in the business and allows them to downsize a bit, I think it could result in a better railway which is ultimately what they exist for.

I also think it's likely that these stations and their shopping centres could be better ran by retail businesses, rather than a railway operator.

There is also the added bonus of significant income gained however to pay down the debt which will have interest payments.

this is the kind of rubbish people come out with every time this comes around. Sorry, but you have no idea what you are talking about :roll:

Do you HONESTLY believe that people are somehow removed from fixing the track to manage the property estate. Honestly?

The people who look after the property estate are property professionals hired precisely to manage that estate. The people managing these "shopping centers" and the rest are employed from commercial estate management firms! They aren't being diverted from maintenance or enhancements and if the property they manage is sold off they wont be picking up shovels :roll:

Guess what - they have done a really good job, which is precisely why they will get sold off! Just look out the returns made on the NR property portfolio over recent years. All that money went back into the pot to run the railway. Who will replace that now.........

 

[infobleep]

Initial reaction was to run and hide from further privatisation, but seeing how well StP is run these days there could be some positives from this.

But if that is run by Network Rail, even if they don't own it, doesn't that mean in future it wouldn't be?

 

[bramling]

Initial reaction was to run and hide from further privatisation, but seeing how well StP is run these days there could be some positives from this.

I wouldn't say St Pancras is any better than any NR station. Apart from the free toilets the only real difference I see compared to a NR station is the assets are in a slightly better condition, but that's what you'd expect from a station completely and thoroughly overhauled only a few years ago.

I do find St Pancras can be a trying experience if you're trying to get anywhere in a hurry though. Reaching EMT is a torturous experience, and I recently had to queue for about 5 minutes to get through the gateline having come off a SE High Speed, and that wasn't at a peak time. It does sometimes feel like the rail passenger is an afterthought. Whilst I recognise there is clearly some demand for retail, and it does bring in revenue, my concern would be we end up with increasing amounts of space given over to retail, when congestion and rising passenger numbers probably requires the opposite. Network Rail has been reasonably good at KX and Manchester Piccadilly in keeping the retail clear of the main circulating areas, in my view St Pancras hasn't achieved this so well.

 

[Jordeh]

this is the kind of rubbish people come out with every time this comes around. Sorry, but you have no idea what you are talking about :roll:

Do you HONESTLY believe that people are somehow removed from fixing the track to manage the property estate. Honestly?

The people who look after the property estate are property professionals hired precisely to manage that estate. The people managing these "shopping centers" and the rest are employed from commercial estate management firms! They aren't being diverted from maintenance or enhancements and if the property they manage is sold off they wont be picking up shovels :roll:

Guess what - they have done a really good job, which is precisely why they will get sold off! Just look out the returns made on the NR property portfolio over recent years. All that money went back into the pot to run the railway. Who will replace that now.........

Do I believe senior members of Network Rail will spend significant amounts of their time overseeing this element of the business? Yes. There is also additional resources across a very stretched Network Rail involved from HR, finance etc.

Why do you think so many firms outsource? Many firms could easily run their own IT operations or recruitment but why should they waste their resources on it when they could pay for experts who specialise in it to do it more cost effectively and also better.

Of course the current returns are significant, how on earth could they not be significant when they're leasing out prime retail with very high footfall, it would be almost impossible to make a loss. That doesn't mean for a second the revenue is maximised though, surely a firm like Westfield has more talent and resources to efficiently run a shopping centre.

Network Rail are there to run the railways, not shopping centres.

There's also very limited options for how Network Rail could pay off significant amounts of its debt in a short space of time.

Finally, I don't appreciate your tone, it's rude and you should know better after 9k+ posts.

 

[yorksrob]

It is inevitable that running these shopping centres takes up resources and priorities in Network Rail as it is a reasonable portion of their operations. If this could be focused elsewhere in the business and allows them to downsize a bit, I think it could result in a better railway which is ultimately what they exist for.

I also think it's likely that these stations and their shopping centres could be better ran by retail businesses, rather than a railway operator.

There is also the added bonus of significant income gained however to pay down the debt which will have interest payments.

Not true.

The activity either takes up resources or generates them.

If running these shopping centres took up resources, you can be fairly certain that they wouldn't be there now, ergo they must generate revenue.
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---

Do I believe senior members of Network Rail will spend significant amounts of their time overseeing this element of the business? Yes. There is also additional resources across a very stretched Network Rail involved from HR, finance etc.

Why do you think so many firms outsource? Many firms could easily run their own IT operations or recruitment but why should they waste their resources on it when they could pay for experts who specialise in it to do it more cost effectively and also better.

Of course the current returns are significant, how on earth could they not be significant when they're leasing out prime retail with very high footfall, it would be almost impossible to make a loss. That doesn't mean for a second the revenue is maximised though, surely a firm like Westfield has more talent and resources to efficiently run a shopping centre.

Network Rail are there to run the railways, not shopping centres.

There's also very limited options for how Network Rail could pay off significant amounts of its debt in a short space of time.

Finally, I don't appreciate your tone, it's rude and you should know better after 9k+ posts.

I'm sure Network Rail is quite capable of recruiting people specifically to run the retail empire.

The idea that "Network Rail is there to run railways, not shopping centres" is a compelling cliche, but the reality is that NR generating revenue from elsewhere is good for the taxpayer.

 

[DarloRich]

Do I believe senior members of Network Rail will spend significant amounts of their time overseeing this element of the business? Yes. There is also additional resources across a very stretched Network Rail involved from HR, finance etc.

Why do you think so many firms outsource? Many firms could easily run their own IT operations or recruitment but why should they waste their resources on it when they could pay for experts who specialise in it to do it more cost effectively and also better.

Of course the current returns are significant, how on earth could they not be significant when they're leasing out prime retail with very high footfall, it would be almost impossible to make a loss. That doesn't mean for a second the revenue is maximised though, surely a firm like Westfield has more talent and resources to efficiently run a shopping centre.

Network Rail are there to run the railways, not shopping centres.

There's also very limited options for how Network Rail could pay off significant amounts of its debt in a short space of time.

Finally, I don't appreciate your tone, it's rude and you should know better after 9k+ posts.

You are, sadly, missing the point: Network Rail already employ experts to run their property portfolio. Outsourced the portfolio will be run by those same experts. There is a stand alone property department tasked with managing and generating an income from the property estate. They do that well.

That money goes back into the pot to fix the railway. Where will the money come from to replace that year on year income tomorrow after it is sold off, no doubt under value, today?

As for the point: Network Rail are there to run the railways, not shopping centres. :roll: Which part of the property department will be transferred to fixing the track.?

Selling off the property portfolio and especially the juiciest plums, will have no direct impact on running a better railway as this suggestion will free up next to no resources needed to run a railway. Even the savings made in staff reduction will be negligible in the face of the future income lost. It will simply mean there is less money to spend in the future and create an even more complicated interface between interested parties involved in running the system.

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

Is there any means of finding out how much annual finance that Network Rail has to allocate for maintenance costs on these buildings they own and now appear to wish to so divest themselves of?

 

[Jordeh]

Not true.

The activity either takes up resources or generates them.

If running these shopping centres took up resources, you can be fairly certain that they wouldn't be there now, ergo they must generate revenue.
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---


I'm sure Network Rail is quite capable of recruiting people specifically to run the retail empire.

The idea that "Network Rail is there to run railways, not shopping centres" is a compelling cliche, but the reality is that NR generating revenue from elsewhere is good for the taxpayer.

It most certainly will take up resources such as IT, finance etc and it will also take up the time of senior members of Network Rail. There is absolutely nothing wrong with a business downsizing so it can focus on its core operations.

I have little doubt they do recruit people to run the retail empire, it doesn't mean it is appropriate to their main purpose though. They could quite easily purchase more trains and become an highly profitable FOC, or maybe even a TOC, but it doesn't mean it is the right decision for their business.

You are, sadly, missing the point: Network Rail already employ experts to run their property portfolio. Outsourced the portfolio will be run by those same experts. There is a stand alone property department tasked with managing and generating an income from the property estate. They do that well.

That money goes back into the pot to fix the railway. Where will the money come from to replace that year on year income tomorrow after it is sold off, no doubt under value, today?

As for the point: Network Rail are there to run the railways, not shopping centres. :roll: Which part of the property department will be transferred to fixing the track.?

Selling off the property portfolio and especially the juiciest plums, will have no direct impact on running a better railway as this suggestion will free up next to no resources needed to run a railway. Even the savings made in staff reduction will be negligible in the face of the future income lost. It will simply mean there is less money to spend in the future and create an even more complicated interface between interested parties involved in running the system.

How do you know Network Rail are any good at running shopping centres? Are you an expert in retail? Just because it brings in revenue doesn't mean they are doing it well, that is merely your simplistic observation.

Like I have already said, it would be very difficult for it not to be highly profitable considering the high footfall and low costs. However, it can still become a lot more profitable and better ran. It is all very well bringing in experts, anyone can do that, but a business like Westfield from top to bottom is more cut out to run shopping centres.

Some other similar examples in the railways, why do you think Northern Rail uses G4S to run security? Why does East Midlands Trains uses Rail Gourmet for catering? They're capable of doing both, but it doesn't mean they're best to.

You also seem to be avoiding my point they are also £50bn in debt and unless they find ways to pay it down then it is inevitable there will be significant changes to the way they are run. This is a somewhat easy solution.

Businesses regularly sell off highly profitable areas of their business simply because they're not relevant to their main operation and/or they need a large cash injection.

 

[Carntyne]

Awful decision. The managed stations make a fortune and NR will now not have access to those funds. Crazy but expected.

 

[infobleep]

What about the smaller stations. I mean there is currently a planning proposal to redeveloped Guildford station. Why not sell that off at the same time? It's currently managed by South West Trains but anyone can own it, even if they don't manage it.

Alternatively South West Trains could focus on running trains and leave the station to other people.

In fact if we take this further, perhaps there could be station franchises. People bid for groups of stations. It would include ones not so popular admittedly. I mean who'd want Denton? Lol.

However may be some of the less profitable ones could be taken over by community groups to run.

 

[Llanigraham]

Do I believe senior members of Network Rail will spend significant amounts of their time overseeing this element of the business? Yes. There is also additional resources across a very stretched Network Rail involved from HR, finance etc.

Why do you think so many firms outsource? Many firms could easily run their own IT operations or recruitment but why should they waste their resources on it when they could pay for experts who specialise in it to do it more cost effectively and also better.

Of course the current returns are significant, how on earth could they not be significant when they're leasing out prime retail with very high footfall, it would be almost impossible to make a loss. That doesn't mean for a second the revenue is maximised though, surely a firm like Westfield has more talent and resources to efficiently run a shopping centre.

Network Rail are there to run the railways, not shopping centres.

There's also very limited options for how Network Rail could pay off significant amounts of its debt in a short space of time.

Finally, I don't appreciate your tone, it's rude and you should know better after 9k+ posts.

Perhaps you haven't noticed, but stations and their passenger facilities, such as the shopping centres, are part of the railway.

And as for your last paragraph................................
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---

It most certainly will take up resources such as IT, finance etc and it will also take up the time of senior members of Network Rail. There is absolutely nothing wrong with a business downsizing so it can focus on its core operations.

I have little doubt they do recruit people to run the retail empire, it doesn't mean it is appropriate to their main purpose though. They could quite easily purchase more trains and become an highly profitable FOC, or maybe even a TOC, but it doesn't mean it is the right decision for their business.

How do you know Network Rail are any good at running shopping centres? Are you an expert in retail? Just because it brings in revenue doesn't mean they are doing it well, that is merely your simplistic observation.

Like I have already said, it would be very difficult for it not to be highly profitable considering the high footfall and low costs. However, it can still become a lot more profitable and better ran. It is all very well bringing in experts, anyone can do that, but a business like Westfield from top to bottom is more cut out to run shopping centres.

Some other similar examples in the railways, why do you think Northern Rail uses G4S to run security? Why does East Midlands Trains uses Rail Gourmet for catering? They're capable of doing both, but it doesn't mean they're best to.

You also seem to be avoiding my point they are also £50bn in debt and unless they find ways to pay it down then it is inevitable there will be significant changes to the way they are run. This is a somewhat easy solution.

Businesses regularly sell off highly profitable areas of their business simply because they're not relevant to their main operation and/or they need a large cash injection.

Methinks you need to do some research!!

 

[northwichcat]

Awful decision. The managed stations make a fortune and NR will now not have access to those funds. Crazy but expected.

Conservative Chancellors haven't got a good track record of balancing the books. Geoffrey Howe and Nigel Lawson never broke even or delivered a budget surplus. John Major managed to deliver a small budget surplus for two years but with Major as PM and Lamont/Clarke as Chancellor the books were very badly balanced with the 1993 deficit being £51m compared to £69m under Darling in 2008, with inflation I imagine the 1993 figure is much worse.

In Brown's first year as Chancellor he almost halved the deficit (29.2m in Clarke's final year as Chancellor compared to £15.5m in Brown's first year.) Brown then went on to deliver a surplus for 4 years and even though most subsequent years there was a deficit, the deficit was smaller than it was when Major was PM until the 2008 crash.

It seems Osborne is either jealous of Labour's achievements or is embarrassed by the Conservative's previous lack of achievement so keeps wanting to do everything he can to deliver a budget surplus even if it'll make it harder for the next Chancellor to deliver a surplus. He's hoping he'll be PM in 2020.
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---

Some other similar examples in the railways, why do you think Northern Rail uses G4S to run security?

They don't anymore. Since the Northern Direct Award started they have used STM Security to provide revenue work which includes providing revenue inspectors at stations and collecting cash from the TVMs.

 

[EM2]

How do you know Network Rail are any good at running shopping centres? Are you an expert in retail? Just because it brings in revenue doesn't mean they are doing it well, that is merely your simplistic observation.

Like I have already said, it would be very difficult for it not to be highly profitable considering the high footfall and low costs. However, it can still become a lot more profitable and better ran. It is all very well bringing in experts, anyone can do that, but a business like Westfield from top to bottom is more cut out to run shopping centres.

The core function of a railway station is for passengers to be able to catch a train to where they want to go. That's it. Everything else just creates extra revenue. Why do you feel that Westfield would have the expertise to do this?

 

[Jordeh]

Perhaps you haven't noticed, but stations and their passenger facilities, such as the shopping centres, are part of the railway.

And as for your last paragraph................................
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---


Methinks you need to do some research!!

I don't see your point. Network Rail owns and operates some trains but they are not a FOC and do very little in the way of commercial work (HS1 comes to mind). I realise they use DBS drivers and rely on FOCs for much of their work (because after all, FOCs are the experts in that). They could quite easily use their trains to successfully operate container trains or even begin running passenger services for a profit but it is not relevant to their business.

They don't anymore. Since the Northern Direct Award started they have used STM Security to provide revenue work which includes providing revenue inspectors at stations and collecting cash from the TVMs.

Apologies I didn't realise they had changed, the point still stands though.

The core function of a railway station is for passengers to be able to catch a train to where they want to go. That's it. Everything else just creates extra revenue. Why do you feel that Westfield would have the expertise to do this?

I don't see waiting rooms or Passenger Information Systems creating extra revenue but they're still necessary parts of a railway station for people to catch a train.

Claire's Accessories in Euston or Champagne Bars? By all means have them but they are not necessary and do not need to be let by Network Rail.

-------------
Edit: I don't think it would do any harm to read into divestment, something important that many successful large businesses do.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Divestment

 

[carriageline]

The point you are failing to grasp is who cares if it's making the MAXIMUM profit? If it's sold off, then it will be making them no profit, and going into shareholders pockets.

It doesn't solve any deeper issues, once that debt is paid off it will surely just build again.

 

[Jordeh]

The point you are failing to grasp is who cares if it's making the MAXIMUM profit? If it's sold off, then it will be making them no profit, and going into shareholders pockets.

It doesn't solve any deeper issues, once that debt is paid off it will surely just build again.

Because it allows them to focus on running the railways. The clue is in sell off, that will generate a vast sum of money, they're not going giving it away for free.

 

[carriageline]

Because it allows them to focus on running the railways. The clue is in sell off, that will generate a vast sum of money, they're not going giving it away for free.

Trust me, nothing will change. Any issues within NR are not because their attention is diverted to running a small property portfolio.

The money will go to the banks/government to pay the debt off. If anything, they will need to borrow more in future as they are bringing less in surely.

Once that money is gone, that's it (and it will go VERY quickly)

It's short sighted. Be interesting to know how much money the properties would make them, say over the next 20 years

 

[Carntyne]

Because it allows them to focus on running the railways. The clue is in sell off, that will generate a vast sum of money, they're not going giving it away for free.

Thus cutting off a future revenue stream. it's short sighted idiocy which will have a massively negative long term effect.

I've no doubt it's the fore runner to NR being privatised and seeing safety put on the back burner again like it was under Railtrack.

 

[Jordeh]

Trust me, nothing will change. Any issues within NR are not because their attention is diverted to running a small property portfolio.

The money will go to the banks/government to pay the debt off. If anything, they will need to borrow more in future as they are bringing less in surely.

Once that money is gone, that's it (and it will go VERY quickly)

It's short sighted. Be interesting to know how much money the properties would make them, say over the next 20 years

In some respects Network Rail is very much in crisis, it is always missing targets, vilified by the press and is significantly in debt. Paying down that debt and downsizing will be necessary for the long-term future of Network Rail. Otherwise there is a very real risk of the likes of Railtrack coming back and safety being put at risk (an area they are currently world leaders).

 

[carriageline]

In some respects Network Rail is very much in crisis, it is always missing targets, vilified by the press and is significantly in debt. Paying down that debt and downsizing will be necessary for the long-term future of Network Rail. Otherwise there is a very real risk of the likes of Railtrack coming back and safety being put at risk (an area they are currently world leaders).

Put your news paper down for a minute. "Always missing targets"? What a load of rubbish

 

[EM2]

I don't see waiting rooms or Passenger Information Systems creating extra revenue but they're still necessary parts of a railway station for people to catch a train.

Yes, they enable the core function, as I said.

Claire's Accessories in Euston or Champagne Bars? By all means have them but they are not necessary and do not need to be let by Network Rail.

Correct. They don't.
But once again, why do you feel that Westfield can operate a railway station, but Network Rail can't operate a 'shopping centre' (which they don't anyway)?
The article talks of selling off the entire major station portfolio, not just the retail bits. That means that a private company, possibly with absolutely no railway experience at all, could be in charge of Waterloo and Victoria. That means things like information provision, security, disabled passenger assistance and so on.