Network Rail in last chance saloon

[Metroland]

Bill Emery, chief executive of the Office of Rail Regulation (ORR), has indicated that Network Rail has been given one last chance to prove that the current industry structure can work.

....

In an interview with The Times newspaper, he suggested that a better structure could be to reintegrate tracks and trains into “city regions”, giving local authorities greater powers to improve services.

Network Rail was created by the Government in 2002 to replace Railtrack. Although technically a private company, it has no shareholders and is dependent on public subsidy.

It has made steady progress in reducing costs, but failed to meet its own targets for cutting delays and still consumes three times as much subsidy as British Rail did.

The ORR has fined Network Rail twice in the past year after engineering works overran, inconveniencing hundreds of thousands of passengers.

Research conducted by the regulator has also shown that the company is less efficient than several publicly owned networks on the Continent.

Mr Emery criticised Network Rail for protecting its monopoly and refusing a proposal from Merseytravel, the public transport authority on Merseyside, to run its own tracks.

Merseytravel wanted to combine track and train operations for the first time since privatisation, a change which could have saved up to £30 million a year and delivered better performance.

Mr Emery said: “It would have tested whether working closely together as a vertically integrated piece of railway would lead to a better performance and lower costs.”

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2068042/Network-Rail-warned-it-could-lose-monopoly.html

http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/industry_sectors/transport/article4053977.ece

 

[yorkie]

...In an interview with The Times newspaper, he suggested that a better structure could be to reintegrate tracks and trains into “city regions”, giving local authorities greater powers to improve services...

This would make XC even less reliable as the local companies would be more likely to give priority to their own local trains.:neutral:

 

[Metroland]

I don't agree in practice having actually made those sorts of decisions in real life. The trick is to minimise delay and, if possible, make connections. So long distance trains are still sometimes given preference over local trains so passengers aren't stranded.

Sounds like a straw man argument to me.

 

[gingerheid]

Sometimes you despair.

Network Rail isn't as good as the BR is was split from so lets... I know!!! SPlit Network Rail! Doh :roll:

 

[P156KWJ]

this would just disrupt services even more, unnecessarilly, NR are doing a darn sight better than Failtrack, but if you want a real good railway company, just bring staff from the railways in Bombay and so on!

 

[Metroland]

Wales, Scotland, Great Western, Great Eastern, Great Northern, London Midland, and Southern all in companies would be best in my view.

 

[Guinness]

If they give control to local councils it would be as usual, a cost cutting tool. One council will invest in Rail in the millions with new lines, infrastructure while another will just barely maintain it.

Messing about with Network Rail will just waste more money trying to restructure the damn thing.

 

[Proud Salopian]

Let's give the network to the parishes!

 

[Z12XE]

If they give control to local councils it would be as usual, a cost cutting tool. One council will invest in Rail in the millions with new lines, infrastructure while another will just barely maintain it.

Very true. Plus where railway lines cross county borders it will be difficult for that line to have any kind of joined up thinking.

I'd hate to think what would happen here in Suffolk.
Lowestoft-Ipswich would have gold rails installed, trains every 3.5 minutes whilst the rest of the county goes to hell, because as the past has shown they favour one area over another.

 

[Metroland]

So where's the joined up thinking and long term investment incentives for franchises? There isn't any!

As for more money, most of it now goes on the interfaces between the 100s of companies (and the profit they want to make) that form the industry plus the various Quangos. Why would something that is streamlined down to say less than 10 companies cost more?

The only successful private railways in the world own track and train. EG Japan, US. Although that doesn't mean you can't have open access or one company runs trains onto another companies lines - as they do there. This is what happened in grouping/pre grouping days here, the only time the railways were financially successful.

It also doesn't mean you can't have common standards where appropriate.

What you do get is a real benchmark as to who is really performing and who isn't, without the buck passing. So if one area does go to ruin, we know exactly who to blame instead of the situation now where say 1st Great Western blames Network rail.

As for Network Rail - it receives so much money, it's now probably the most inefficient railway in the world. Unit costs are some 2-3 times higher than nationalised networks abroad and nearly 8-10 times higher than vertically integrated private railways. It's performance is no better than BR or Railtrack, especially when you take timetable padding into account, and it's safety record is equally questionable as any that went before - Especially as I've always maintained the profit v safety argument is a construct of left wing politicians and the media.

If we want a bigger, better and above all cheaper railway serious consideration must be given to any structure that is more cost efficient should NR not pull their socks up and this could be proven/dis-proven with a trial area.

 

[gordonthemoron]

in the recent DB privatisation, control of the track and infrastructure is retained by the German state as it is a 'national security issue'

 

[Metroland]

The UK government already have the right to take over any infrastructure or private property in case of war or civil emergency...

EU regulations state that there should be separate accounts held of pathing and train operations, but this doesn't mean there has to be separate companies, even though some European networks have gone down this route.

For those that are interested in how the ORR come up with conclusions and international comparisons, they are here:

http://www.rail-reg.gov.uk/server/show/nav.1774

http://www.rail-reg.gov.uk/server/show/ConWebDoc.9145#consult