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This from Business Insider who seem to have plagiarised from Sunday Times
The Labour Party will scrap Network Rail as part of its plans to hand over running of the railways to a new Great British Railways (GBR) body.
Shadow Transport Secretary Louise Haigh was quoted in the Sunday Times as saying: “Network Rail has had to contend with maintaining aged infrastructure across a deeply fragmented rail system, where incentives are not property aligned. Network Rail will be abolished.”
Labour plans to create a new Great British Railways (GBR) body and will take over franchises as they expire, thus avoiding the cost of nationalising other private held assets, such as utilities.
The aim is to bring the railways into public ownership by the end of a first term in government.
I'm sure that was the plan originally as well for GBR from the Conservatives.
Labour hasn't said what will happen to London Overground, Elizabeth Line, Merseyrail etc under GBR, I assume those will stay with their respective parties such as TfL and Merseytravel, likewise Scotrail and TfW Rail.
I take this as removing vertical separation and thus the separation between operation of services and maintenance and development of infrastructure. I can see advantages with this but it would make rejoining the EU difficult (If an elected Labour government feels like doing that) given the requirement to separate the management of infrastructure and services to encourage free market competition.
Louise Haigh was also quoted in the ST as saying: "Labour's plan will deliver a culture change that ... will ensure that expert professional leaders and staff will have the freedom to determine how best to deliver on the objectives set by ministers". If that's saying "no micromanagement, even of programmes costing billions", will it survive contact with Rachel Reeves?
But you do wonder what she thinks Network Rail is. And as to "abolish NR" - I imagine it's a snappier way of saying "the industry will be restructured, and what's now NR will still exist in some form, but not be recognisable as an organisation".
I take this as removing vertical separation and thus the separation between operation of services and maintenance and development of infrastructure. I can see advantages with this but it would make rejoining the EU difficult (If an elected Labour government feels like doing that) given the requirement to separate the management of infrastructure and services to encourage free market competition.
For whatever reason, the UK Civil Service advised the Major government that the EU required separate bodies for trains and infrastructure. That ruled out privatisation on the lines of reinstating something similar to the Big 4 structure from 1923 to 1948 or even the multitude of Companies as from 1830 to 1923. Other EU countries read the requirements to just mean that there should be separate accounting of infrastructure costs so as to facilitate open access operators. Applied to the UK that could have meant that you bought shares in, say, the Great Western Railway which was a holding company for Great Western Trains and Great Western Network
For whatever reason, the UK Civil Service advised the Major government that the EU required separate bodies for trains and infrastructure. That ruled out privatisation on the lines of reinstating something similar to the Big 4 structure from 1923 to 1948 or even the multitude of Companies as from 1830 to 1923. Other EU countries read the requirements to just mean that there should be separate accounting of infrastructure costs so as to facilitate open access operators. Applied to the UK that could have meant that you bought shares in, say, the Great Western Railway which was a holding company for Great Western Trains and Great Western Network
Having discussed this with Sir John directly, that is not what happened and was not the principal guiding factor in the specific model of privatisation which eventuated.
I take this as removing vertical separation and thus the separation between operation of services and maintenance and development of infrastructure. I can see advantages with this but it would make rejoining the EU difficult (If an elected Labour government feels like doing that) given the requirement to separate the management of infrastructure and services to encourage free market competition.
Which solved by operating, from a legal point of view to separate companies, for example, Great British railways operations management and Great British railways freight and passenger services. The former would own, manage and upgrade assets and infrastructure such as station buildings, track and signals and the latter would be responsible for day-to-day management of station facilities as well as running trains, selling tickets, providing leases to station catering and retail outlets, and coordinating and managing freight and private charter and Open Access services on the network. Both of these companies could share all services such as management, headquarters and administration and only be separated for legal purposes should it be needed
To be fair whilst dissolving NR I wouldn't agree with, something needs to be done to the ridiculous costs simple things seem to cost. I 100% realise we have one of the safest railways networks in the world, but we are cutting back on staff and small jobs are costing multi million s, it really does need looking at
Guess you mean Rail Partners who represent the the TOC owning groups and the Open Access operators who are providing appropraite social services that should be absorbed into the national network anyhow but more integrated to avoid some duplication. Also not sure the bulk of the worker, who are the core of the industry, would agree with your view either.
I'm sure that was the plan originally as well for GBR from the Conservatives.
Labour hasn't said what will happen to London Overground, Elizabeth Line, Merseyrail etc under GBR, I assume those will stay with their respective parties such as TfL and Merseytravel, likewise Scotrail and TfW Rail.
They wont fiddle at the margins initially as this is a long term project built around expiry of NRCs then a reorganisation of the industry. In the longer term a nationwide solution would be to transfer all suburban services around our large cities to the Mayors which would address this.
I'm sure that was the plan originally as well for GBR from the Conservatives.
Labour hasn't said what will happen to London Overground, Elizabeth Line, Merseyrail etc under GBR, I assume those will stay with their respective parties such as TfL and Merseytravel, likewise Scotrail and TfW Rail.
Network Rail can't just be "abolished", as it discharges a number of statutory functions which will have to be redistributed.
It also holds the biggest slice of rail funding from the government, and has just started on its CP7 5-year settlement with ORR (2024-29).
It is also the delivery agent for network operation, maintenance and upgrade, functions which can't just be wished away.
All that will have to re-worked, and it may take the 5 years of CP7 to do it.
The first thing is to get legislation in place to reorganise the industry.
The Tories had a template on the stocks in draft, we need to know what Labour plans to do, either to run with that draft or replace it.
Andrew Haines has always said that GBR would not be Network Rail 2.0 and expected major organisational change, whatever government was in charge.
Network Rail can't just be "abolished", as it discharges a number of statutory functions which will have to be redistributed.
It also holds the biggest slice of rail funding from the government, and has just started on its CP7 5-year settlement with ORR (2024-29).
It is also the delivery agent for network operation, maintenance and upgrade, functions which can't just be wished away.
All that will have to re-worked, and it may take the 5 years of CP7 to do it.
The first thing is to get legislation in place to reorganise the industry.
The Tories had a template on the stocks in draft, we need to know what Labour plans to do, either to run with that draft or replace it.
Andrew Haines has always said that GBR would not be Network Rail 2.0 and expected major organisational change, whatever government was in charge.
Indeed you need an organisation like NR to regulate these statutory functions. You cannot expect private companies to collude and work together just for the ‘best of the industry’ as this is illegal under the competition laws as its operating in the manner of a cartel!
The likes of Freightliner, Colas and GBRf are private companies and will remain so!
Sadly (albeit a secondary matter) Labour don't seem to have questioned the title 'Great British Railways'. It goes with them wrapping themselves in the Union Jack I suppose. When will these flag-wavers admit that 'Great Britain' is a geographical term, not a political one and least of all a jingoistic one? In any case, if TfW and Scotrail are going to be outside this organisation (are they?) it's basically English Railways isn't it?
If it means changing the current situation of being an engineering led railway to a traffic led railway (as British Rail was) then it will be a good thing!
If this means having one company running all of the trains and infrastructure then this is one thing that i actually agree with. One of the big mistakes that the EU has made was separating the train operators and infrastructure in to separate companies. The train companies and the infrastructure are so interlinked and should really be the same company. It creates a lot more mess when you separate them. Northern Ireland still has their train operator and infrastructure combined in to one company and it is noticeably a lot better and everything is more reliable over there. So i think this will actually be a good decision if it is done properly.
There's nowhere near enough detail yet to properly critique, but there are many in the industry that can see the current structure encourages fragmentation and a complete lack of joined up thinking. Revenue has flowed to Government now for over 4 years yet we still have a fares structure designed around TOCs taking chunks of money off each other.
If it means changing the current situation of being an engineering led railway to a traffic led railway (as British Rail was) then it will be a good thing!
Hear hear. It took British Rail 35 years to establish sectorised ownership of the business profit and loss accounts; let's hope GBR can manage it a bit more quickly.
That's funny, because it has been discussed a lot within the industry at pretty much every level and everyone from the TOCs and NWR I've discussed this with has said that it's what they really want to help get the railway back on its feet. Even some quite senior people I've bumped into at the pub have privately admitted that they'd be up for it, even though it would end up emasculating their posts and breaking up their empires.
People like Hynes, Haines and Shoveller have used pretty much every opportunity possible to indicate their preference for this sort of model at industry events.
The only people who are against it tend to be the private vultures from Rail Partners etc. who are seeing their doss jobs, free lunches and inflated salaries being put at risk.
== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: ==
But you do wonder what she thinks Network Rail is. And as to "abolish NR" - I imagine it's a snappier way of saying "the industry will be restructured, and what's now NR will still exist in some form, but not be recognisable as an organisation".
Yes, most likely in terms of the regional and route teams being grafted onto the TOCs, and system operator, technical authority, supply chain ops, IT, business support, contracts, procurement, consultancy, and major projects becoming departments of the Headquarters function of GBR.
Haines has said pretty much from day one that GBR won't and mustn't be Network Rail 2.0, so yes as you say there will be a reorganisation. To ensure a balance between the power bases of the ex-TOCs and NR, scattering NR such that you can no longer perceive it as an entity is necessary in my opinion.
Network Rail can't just be "abolished", as it discharges a number of statutory functions which will have to be redistributed.
It also holds the biggest slice of rail funding from the government, [...]
It is also the delivery agent for network operation, maintenance and upgrade, functions which can't just be wished away.
All that will have to re-worked, and it may take the 5 years of CP7 to do it.
[...]
I would've thought that could be taken as read! Would it not be as simple as GBR taking over NR, then redistributing the functions as they see fit over the course of several years as per an internal reorganisation?
If it means changing the current situation of being an engineering led railway to a traffic led railway (as British Rail was) then it will be a good thing!
Well this is the fundamental thing which needs to be fixed.
It's one of the things OfQ got right IMO - the engineers were for the first time part of a team whose focus was delivering a service and earning revenue to/from a particular customer base. Under Railtrack, that was perverted into providing track capacity in a generic way across GB and making money out of property, the trains being largely a distraction from playing Monopoly. Whilst Network Rail has patched up some of the worst of Railtrack's arrogance, it's still an organisation which has elements which have consistently tried to position NR as being in charge of the railway whilst ignoring revenue and service delivery.
To be fair whilst dissolving NR I wouldn't agree with, something needs to be done to the ridiculous costs simple things seem to cost. I 100% realise we have one of the safest railways networks in the world, but we are cutting back on staff and small jobs are costing multi million s, it really does need looking at
That's funny, because it has been discussed a lot within the industry at pretty much every level and everyone from the TOCs and NWR I've discussed this with has said that it's what they really want to help get the railway back on its feet. Even some quite senior people I've bumped into at the pub have privately admitted that they'd be up for it, even though it would end up emasculating their posts and breaking up their empires.
People like Hynes, Haines and Shoveller have used pretty much every opportunity possible to indicate their preference for this sort of model at industry events.
The only people who are against it tend to be the private vultures from Rail Partners etc. who are seeing their doss jobs, free lunches and inflated salaries being put at risk.
== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: ==
Yes, most likely in terms of the regional and route teams being grafted onto the TOCs, and system operator, technical authority, supply chain ops, IT, business support, contracts, procurement, consultancy, and major projects becoming departments of the Headquarters function of GBR.
Haines has said pretty much from day one that GBR won't and mustn't be Network Rail 2.0, so yes as you say there will be a reorganisation. To ensure a balance between the power bases of the ex-TOCs and NR, scattering NR such that you can no longer perceive it as an entity is necessary in my opinion.
I would've thought that could be taken as read! Would it not be as simple as GBR taking over NR, then redistributing the functions as they see fit over the course of several years as per an internal reorganisation?
Well this is the fundamental thing which needs to be fixed.
It's one of the things OfQ got right IMO - the engineers were for the first time part of a team whose focus was delivering a service and earning revenue to/from a particular customer base. Under Railtrack, that was perverted into providing track capacity in a generic way across GB and making money out of property, the trains being largely a distraction from playing Monopoly. Whilst Network Rail has patched up some of the worst of Railtrack's arrogance, it's still an organisation which has elements which have consistently tried to position NR as being in charge of the railway whilst ignoring revenue and service delivery.
Are you keen on keeping NR, if you don't mind me asking?
I think they work hard, keep us safe and due to increasing demand for 24/7 service are under constant pressure to hand back. On the ground I think they do well, the ridiculous amount of red tape and hoops they have to jump though though at senior level to make any sort of plan is crazy.
A simple job that on a road or private property would cost 100k will easily go over a million on the railway. This has to be worked on to find a safe happy medium
I think they work hard, keep us safe and due to increasing demand for 24/7 service are under constant pressure to hand back. On the ground I think they do well, the ridiculous amount of red tape and hoops they have to jump though though at senior level to make any sort of plan is crazy.
Does this function need to be discharged by a separate organisation, though? It's not like GBR would replace the NR staff with others taken out of the train set cupboard?
Does this function need to be discharged by a separate organisation, though? It's not like GBR would replace the NR staff with others taken out of the train set cupboard?
If this means having one company running all of the trains and infrastructure then this is one thing that i actually agree with. One of the big mistakes that the EU has made was separating the train operators and infrastructure in to separate companies. The train companies and the infrastructure are so interlinked and should really be the same company. It creates a lot more mess when you separate them. Northern Ireland still has their train operator and infrastructure combined in to one company and it is noticeably a lot better and everything is more reliable over there. So i think this will actually be a good decision if it is done properly.
As has been pointed out many times, the EU did not insist on separate organisations running track and train - just that the accounting was split so that there could be multiple operators on the infrastructure, not just the state monopoly operator .
That's how it works now in most EU states, with multiple TOCs on a national infrastructure, even if both sides are under the same state umbrella.
We are about to do the same with open access (inc freight) alongside public operators.
Multiple operators means regulated access charges, competition rules, allowing new entrants and maintaining a level playing field for all TOCs, through ORR.
We still don't know how GBR will be organised, even if under 100% direct government control (which it has been since Covid, anyway).
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