SWT/Network Rail Alliance to be "reshaped"

[3141]

According to

http://www.networkrailmediacentre.c...r-the-south-west-trains-network-rail-alliance

New future for the South West Trains - Network Rail alliance

After three years in action, the ground-breaking South West Trains - Network Rail alliance is being reshaped.

It will see South West Trains (SWT) and Network Rail (NR) aiming to retain the best and most successful parts of the alliance.

SWT and NR envisage retaining the fully integrated control centre based at Waterloo (WICC), the one station team at Waterloo, integrated capacity and planning teams and the joint performance team - all of the joint teams established to deliver real benefits to passengers. The reshaped alliance will involve changes to management structure and commercial arrangements.

A key priority of the alliance moving forward is to deliver the biggest improvements seen on the Wessex route for decades. The jointly developed strategy will provide an extra 30% peak-time capacity by 2018 with new trains, major infrastructure improvements at Waterloo and bringing the former Waterloo International Terminal back into full use.

Going forward the Network Rail post of Route Managing Director will be reintroduced and John Halsall, current Infrastructure Director, will assume this role, whilst Tim Shoveller continues to be Managing Director for South West Trains. They will continue to work closely to deliver benefits for customers....

The SWT Network Rail Alliance is to be reshaped, retaining the joint teams that have been set up but with separate management for the future.

Roger Ford’s version is that it has collapsed.

Does anyone know more? I am wondering if the need to keep their finances entirely separate is a reason, particularly if the DfT is negotiating with Stagecoach over a direct award.

 

[LNW-GW Joint]

According to
http://www.networkrailmediacentre.c...r-the-south-west-trains-network-rail-alliance
The SWT Network Rail Alliance is to be reshaped, retaining the joint teams that have been set up but with separate management for the future.
Roger Ford’s version is that it has collapsed.

Does anyone know more? I am wondering if the need to keep their finances entirely separate is a reason, particularly if the DfT is negotiating with Stagecoach over a direct award.

Maybe the public sector classification of NR's funds hasn't helped.
The money-go-round between NR, SWT and DfT must be very complicated.
Or maybe they disagree about something strategic - like "electric spine"?
I see that NR resumes managing its Wessex Route, and Tim Shoveller returns to Stagecoach.

 

[LLivery]

Just reading the RAIL I bought today but dated for tomorrow, its been "ditched".

Network Rail said that Stagecoach had pulled out of the deal on money grounds, with the company not receiving compensation for disruption under joint financial arrangements. However, Stagecoach denied this - it's thought the company was more concerned with NR's move back to centralised control, which was incompatible with the Alliance taking local decisions.

However, its said that SWTs revenue from NR is not expected to increase. Also, ScotRail's alliance will still go ahead.

They will continue to run a single control centre at Waterloo

Both quotes from RAIL

 

[LNW-GW Joint]

Some comments from Stagecoach are in their Annual Report out today (Page 11 of this): http://www.stagecoach.com/~/media/F...Attachments/media/press/pr2015/2015-06-24.pdf
Seems to confirm it's basically a problem of financing the operation, linked to NR performance.

The new arrangements reflect the current regulatory framework that applies to UK railways and the different operating models of the two parties. We are confident that these changes will prioritise the right areas, reduce unnecessary bureaucracy and allow South West Trains and Network Rail to focus on working together on the matters that are most likely to offer the greatest benefits to customers.

Stagecoach also provides updates (page 10-12) on each of its rail franchise interests.
It seems nothing much is happening on the EMT direct award.
VT (WC) is performing well and they are looking for a 1-year extension until 2018 under the franchise agreement.

The BBC has got the report wrong, attributing the profit growth to the VTEC franchise when it is actually from Virgin Rail Group (ie VTWC).
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-scotland-business-33254491

 

[theironroad]

Wouldn't surprise me if stagecoach (SWT) have realised they would would do far better commercially if the alliance is dissolved and ' normal commercial arrangements' apply. As the majority of delays are infrastructure related, stagecoach would be doing pretty well.

What a shambolic way to run a railway, a railway that should be run for the benefit of all the public, not the dividend holders.

 

[transmanche]

If I remember correctly; the last time that someone thought it was a good idea to 'reshape' the rail network, it didn't end well...

 

[HH]

Ditched seems likely. NR cooled off on Alliancing some time ago and I've seen both TS & DfT walk backwards on the subject.

Deep Alliance was Pete Wilkinson's last project before moving to DfT. Last I knew he was still keen on it...

 

[phil281]

Wouldn't surprise me if stagecoach (SWT) have realised they would would do far better commercially if the alliance is dissolved and ' normal commercial arrangements' apply. As the majority of delays are infrastructure related, stagecoach would be doing pretty well.

What a shambolic way to run a railway, a railway that should be run for the benefit of all the public, not the dividend holders.

Spot on.

 

[infobleep]

I thought the alliance had been going well and providing benefit to passengers. Was that not the case or only party the case? I personally thought all other companies should follow their example. Of course I don't have insider knowledge so perhaps I was wrong to think that.

I know there has been infrastructure issues in the SWT network but I thought that was due to governments not allowing investment on the Wessex route until more recent times? Even then it's going to be some years before such investment actually gets underway or is completed.

I wonder how this change will affect passengers and the running of the trains on the SWT network? Will it potentially lead to more infrastructure issues; less issues or no change at all?

 

[HH]

The joint control centre was a success... (sort of).

As an occasional observer I don't think the people involved really believed in it and too easily fell back into their silos. One senior manager on the NR route, for example, was openly critical of the whole thing.

 

[Olaf]

According to

http://www.networkrailmediacentre.c...r-the-south-west-trains-network-rail-alliance
The SWT Network Rail Alliance is to be reshaped, retaining the joint teams that have been set up but with separate management for the future.

Roger Ford’s version is that it has collapsed.

Does anyone know more? I am wondering if the need to keep their finances entirely separate is a reason, particularly if the DfT is negotiating with Stagecoach over a direct award.

Recognition that NR must be fully accountable, and take the responsibility for the delivery of the forthcoming work at Waterloo (and elsewhere).

Also a demonstration that vertical integration is not workable.

 

[NSEFAN]

Also a demonstration that vertical integration is not workable.

Actually, vertical integration would work just fine if done properly. NR would be able to keep more in house staff to maintain a skill set, transferable from project to project. Half-arsed integration is what we seem to have right now. That and politicians promising the Earth despite the best advice of the few people who can actually install the wires!

 

[yorksrob]

Also a demonstration that vertical integration is not workable.

A somewhat courageous statement, given that this has been the method of organising almost every railway in the world for 150 years.

 

[AM9]

A somewhat courageous statement, given that this has been the method of organising almost every railway in the world for 150 years.

All public managed or all private managed maybe but the mish mash of privatisation has produced an environment where service to the passenger and profit for shareholders blurs the overall objectives of running a railway.

 

[Railsigns]

Also a demonstration that vertical integration is not workable.

A somewhat courageous statement, given that this has been the method of organising almost every railway in the world for 150 years.

That's extremely charitable! For 'courageous' read 'crass'.

 

[yorksrob]

That's extremely charitable! For 'courageous' read 'crass'.

I was using the term courageous in the 'Yes Minister' sense

 

[HH]

All public managed or all private managed maybe but the mish mash of privatisation has produced an environment where service to the passenger and profit for shareholders blurs the overall objectives of running a railway.

Nothing specifically to do with the mix of public and private. It's simply that the objectives of NR and the TOCs are not aligned.

For that you can't really blame either entity; the fault lies with those who both report to...

 

[cjmillsnun]

Also a demonstration that vertical integration is not workable.

Really?

Vertical integration worked from the beginning of the railway right up to this current round of privatisation.

Vertical Integration only stopped existing in the late '90s

 

[HH]

Really?

Vertical integration worked from the beginning of the railway right up to this current round of privatisation.

Did it? There was vertical integration, true. That doesn't mean that it worked.

 

[HSTEd]

Did it? There was vertical integration, true. That doesn't mean that it worked.

It worked fine until it was broken by Governments tearing off chunks of it and selling them off to placate private business interests.
Vertical integration is the only simple, and thus easy to make efficient, way to run such a capital intensive industry.

 

[HH]

It worked fine until it was broken by Governments tearing off chunks of it and selling them off to placate private business interests.
Vertical integration is the only simple, and thus easy to make efficient, way to run such a capital intensive industry.

That's your opinion and you're entitled to it. It's not fact, however. Plenty of stuff went wrong under BR.

 

[yorksrob]

Did it? There was vertical integration, true. That doesn't mean that it worked.

It clearly did, otherwise the railway wouldn't have developed and survived for 150 years.

 

[HH]

It clearly did, otherwise the railway wouldn't have developed and survived for 150 years.

Poor argument. It's also developed and survived since it stopped.

 

[NSEFAN]

That's your opinion and you're entitled to it. It's not fact, however. Plenty of stuff went wrong under BR.

Indeed it did. Look at what a farce the modernisation plan was. That being said, BR learned to become efficient towards the end of its life. Wasn't NSE breaking even and Intercity was turning a profit? Compare that with the subsidies required now to almost all TOCs and NR to keep things running.

I suspect that the money is falling down the cracks of the fragmentation. Every company and consultant wants their share of the pie. The attempt to reduce costs with a "free-market" approach hasn't worked, because in a lot of cases there's only a handful of people who can do the job. One monopoly of state employees has been replaced with an army of monopolies of specialists, who would happily charge a premium! It was easy to sell off the industry and create this world, but going back to vertical integration would be almost impossible now.

 

[yorksrob]

Poor argument. It's also developed and survived since it stopped.

Not really. The fact that the railway has survived since vertical integration ended, in no way negates the fact that for the preceding century and a half that system worked. Infact, I find it hard to believe that the network would have developed at all, had it not been for companies building their own infrastructure to fit with their services.

If anything, the suggestion that vertical integration doesn't work, as suggested on this thread is clearly bunkum.

 

[HH]

Not really. The fact that the railway has survived since vertical integration ended, in no way negates the fact that for the preceding century and a half that system worked. Infact, I find it hard to believe that the network would have developed at all, had it not been for companies building their own infrastructure to fit with their services.

The original companies built competing lines; we still suffer some of the anomalies today. BR presided over a gradually shrinking network.

"Worked" is clearly a loose definition.

 

[HSTEd]

That's your opinion and you're entitled to it. It's not fact, however. Plenty of stuff went wrong under BR.

Working fine is not the same as Working Perfectly. Plenty of things might have gone wrong under BR, but they ran a cheap railway and delivered numerous projects that staved off the collapse in railway operations that would have occurred otherwise.

The fact is that the railway since vertical integration was abolished has been nothing short of a disaster - only propped up by rising fuel prices for competing modes of transport and massive helpings of public money at levels the previous system could only dream of.

All the current system proves is that you can make almost anything work if you have enough money.

 

[Railsigns]

BR presided over a gradually shrinking network.

Faced with rising competition from road and air transport, the rail network would have shrunk irrespective of who owned it. A fully privatised railway would have cut sooner and more savagely, however.

You neglected to mention that the rail network was growing during its final years under BR.

 

[HH]

Faced with rising competition from road and air transport, the rail network would have shrunk irrespective of who owned it. A fully privatised railway would have cut sooner and more savagely, however.

You neglected to mention that the rail network was growing during its final years under BR.

A fully privatised railway would undoubtedly have made bigger cuts. However rail, like bus, is never going to be fully private again.

As for the growth under BR, we've been there before. There was a small amount of growth at the very end of BR - this can be put down to recovering from the recession at the beginning of the 90s.

BR could have enjoyed greater growth; they just didn't believe in it. Previously rejected plans were dusted off and put into operation by the private companies.

 

[yorksrob]

A fully privatised railway would undoubtedly have made bigger cuts. However rail, like bus, is never going to be fully private again.

As for the growth under BR, we've been there before. There was a small amount of growth at the very end of BR - this can be put down to recovering from the recession at the beginning of the 90s.

BR could have enjoyed greater growth; they just didn't believe in it. Previously rejected plans were dusted off and put into operation by the private companies.

Taking into account the recessions, the overall trend since the early 1980' s was for growth, albeit nothing like the last fifteen years or so.

Looking at the projects undertaken by BR (Thameslink, Birmingham Snow Hill, Windsor Link) there's no doubt that these had a great potential to create growth, had BR been instructed to grow the business. It's just that Government policy of the time was more geared around controlling costs rather than growing the business. That's a big change in policy over the past twenty years.