Major changes to Network Rail proposed

[Re6/6]

(No sign of Woolmer - presumably he's still licking his wounds after getting 3% of the vote in the Richmond by-election, although he did manage to finish ahead of the Monster Raving Loony Party)

He was on R4's 'Today' programme!

 

 although he did manage to finish ahead of the Monster Raving Loony Party)

I voted for them once. Anybody remember one of their election pledges when Sutch was alive...'Passports for pets'....what do we have now...... 'Passports for pets'! 

[corneliuslundie]

It will be interesting to see if any of the TOCs are actually interested in the idea. Greater, risk, a potential need for more capital and getting the blame when things go wrong. That doesn't sound like something they are going to queue up for. I have seen it reported that DaFT was upset at the smaller number of bidders for recent franchises. 

Regarding East=West Rail, apart from the timescale before anything can happen, itsn't there also a proposal from the same department for upgrading the roads connecting Oxford and Cambridge? Just to make the case stronger for the new railway line, I assume, or give it a bit more competition!

Jonathan

['CHARD]

Just for the sake of accuracy, Sim Harris is affiliated to Railnews, not RAIL, these two being very different publications.

 

Christian Wolmar (note spelling) is a columnist for RAIL, but it should be stressed that he voices very much his own opinion, frequently contrasting with that of editor, Nigel Harris.

 

 

Yours, P. Dant.

[The Stationmaster]

 

The integrated control (and possibly other aspects) live on because those aspects were found to be worth keeping - but compared to the overall intentions of the Alliance, they are very small gains and don't need anywhere near the upheavals the DfT seemingly want to do.

 

I also note that in some reports, the decision to set up the new east -west rail as a stand alone vertically integrated company is welcomed as a chance to compare 'costs' with the rest of NR - which is something the Treasury have wanted to do for a long time to try and prove NRs costs of maintaining the railway are excessive - and a bit of competition is needed to bring them down.

 

You don't need an 'alliance' to have an integrated Control although it can still potentially disadvantage  those operators who are not present in that office  (which is why at sectorisation TLF went in for integrated Controls and I had controllers in the Railtrack Control offices at both Swindon and Fraggle Rock).

 

As far as cost comparisons are concerned the answer is so simple you don't need an 'experiment' - except over about 25 years.  Much of Oxford - Cambridge will be done under CDM Regulations which is inevitably considerably cheaper than taking possessions on a live railway - don't blame NR for that as most if their costs are effectively imposed by outside bodies.   The only direct comparisons will come with work on live parts of the networks , e.g. electrifying Oxford - Bicester (where the average 5 year old could probably plan and do it for less per mile than GWML costs) but even then a lot of national network/superimposed outside organisation overheads simply won't exist.  The only really level playing field will be over 25 years worth of maintenance and renewals on an operational railway.

[Glorious NSE]

The only really level playing field will be over 25 years worth of maintenance and renewals on an operational railway.

 

And how likely is 25 years with no major structural change so that comparison can be done?

[Zomboid]

I'm sure the maintenance cost comparison of what will be a few miles of brand new railway against several thousand miles of 100-200 year old infrastructure will be very enlightening.

[jjb1970]

The balance of costs to be born by tax payers and rail users in a subsidised railway (noting that most users are also likely to be tax payers) is a perennial issue I think. Given that there are benefits to UK plc from a functioning railway system which facilitates mass movement of people and goods, reducing road congestion and keeping urban areas working then I think it is proper that there is an element of state subsidy. I also think that those who use the railway should pay the greater part of the cost given that they're the greatest beneficiaries (many tax payers live in areas with no rail link, many others never use trains as they don't need to). Given that I spend about £5k a year on a season ticket and make good use of the train for purposes other than commuting I probably stand to lose more than many pasengers as a result of the government shifting the split more heavily towards fare based revenue but I think it is the right thing to do.

[Nearholmer]

Well, having tried to swot-up on the content of today's announcement, I'm feeling distinctly underwhelmed!

 

I can see vague stuff, and a promise of more to come later, regarding TOC involvement in maintenance; and, what sounds like a PFI for East-West Rail.

 

To me, both parts pose more questions than they answer.

 

Did I miss anything significant?

 

Kevin

 

PS: Locoholic - "giant version of the underground" ...... yes, that is the inevitable destiny of a passenger railway, as one attempts to squeeze more and more capacity out of fixed infrastructure envelope. Boring for trainspotters; useful to customers.

Edited December 6, 2016 by Nearholmer

[Gerald Henriksen]

I also think that those who use the railway should pay the greater part of the cost given that they're the greatest beneficiaries (many tax payers live in areas with no rail link, many others never use trains as they don't need to).

 

But aren't the greatest beneficiaries of a rail network that has for the most part become a giant commuter system the companies that are able to locate in locations that their employees are unable to live in, and thus indirectly the successive governments that seemingly has bet the economy on a bunch of employeers all located in London?

 

I wonder if a great deal of the public resentment of the rail system is a reflection not just of cost and delays, but rather the fact that the UK has evolved to the point where they have no choice but to use the train to get to/from work given the government's unwillingness/inability to provide adequate road networks to allow for driving or providing other solutions to the problem of being able to afford to live closer to the workplace.

 

In that situation, trying to move more of the cost onto the user is going to be met with a great deal of resistance.

[Glorious NSE]

Indirectly, that passes on to the employers though, who will have to pay something that makes it worth a person's while in putting up with it all...

So effectively, employers in London are taxed higher to than the employers in other places.
 

Edited December 6, 2016 by Glorious NSE

[Nearholmer]

Political calculation:

 

Will it cost/gain more votes to:

 

A) heavily subsidise the railway through taxation; or,

 

B) allow all of the costs to be borne directly by users; or,

 

C) some ever-variable halfway house.

 

The answer is always a different version of ©, and always coupled with "and, the smaller we can make the overall cost, the less painful this topic will be for us".

 

Kevin

[great central]

I wonder if a great deal of the public resentment of the rail system is a reflection not just of cost and delays, but rather the fact that the UK has evolved to the point where they have no choice but to use the train to get to/from work given the government's unwillingness/inability to provide adequate road networks to allow for driving or providing other solutions to the problem of being able to afford to live closer to the workplace.

 

In that situation, trying to move more of the cost onto the user is going to be met with a great deal of resistance.

 

In Nottingham there are deliberate policies to dissuade people from driving into the city centre, they have recently completed a multi-million pound cycle route from the west side of the city which has made what was a two lane in each direction main road into a single lane bottleneck. There are also a good many sets of what I call PYO (p*ss you off) traffic lights that change than for no other reason than to slow you down or stop you.

If I am on an early or late turn it takes about 25 minutes to drive in or out with minimal traffic, if I try to drive in for a middle turn starting anywhere between 7.30 and 10.00 it takes anything up to 90 minutes. For those I can drive to my nearest station and use the train so long as I'm in the car park by about 08.00 or it is full.

The first bus from near my house won't get me into Nottingham much before 8.30, to get an earlier one means at least a 30 minute walk.

[Edwin_m]

In Nottingham there are deliberate policies to dissuade people from driving into the city centre, they have recently completed a multi-million pound cycle route from the west side of the city which has made what was a two lane in each direction main road into a single lane bottleneck. There are also a good many sets of what I call PYO (p*ss you off) traffic lights that change than for no other reason than to slow you down or stop you.

If I am on an early or late turn it takes about 25 minutes to drive in or out with minimal traffic, if I try to drive in for a middle turn starting anywhere between 7.30 and 10.00 it takes anything up to 90 minutes. For those I can drive to my nearest station and use the train so long as I'm in the car park by about 08.00 or it is full.

The first bus from near my house won't get me into Nottingham much before 8.30, to get an earlier one means at least a 30 minute walk.

Nottingham is one of the few places outside London where bus use is high and not falling.  Those sorts of measures are necessary to keep the city moving.  Have you tried the tram park and ride? 

[Classsix T]

Quote from their transport correspondent:

 

"I have never met anyone, no matter what their politics, who thinks it was a good idea to have one company running the trains and another running the track they run on."

 

Maybe he should talk to some of the (very well informed) people here.

Richard Westcott (for that is his name) obviously doesn't get out a great deal.

 

C6T.

[The Stationmaster]

I have been thinking carefully about what is proposed and the main thing which has emerged from my thoughts is that Govt/Grayling/DafT is actually taking one of the most critically helpful aspects of privatisation and reducing it to a far more complex and potentially unworkable situation than is currently the case and what's more it appears to be being proposed purely from a viewpoint of ignorance.

 

To my mind the only way you can add any infrastructure responsibility to operators is to do so on an even handed basis.  This was probably the biggest failing of the final stage of BR sectorisation where all the business sectors which operated trains became secondary users on parts of the network wand were thus potentially disadvantaged while the owning sector gained a potential advantage.  As it happened - mainly because of people with a 'whole network' background this didn't work out too badly because we generally worked together for the overall advantage, as we saw it, of 'the railway'.  Thus - to cite an example - I was quite happy to 'lend' timetable paths I had access contracts for to other operators if I wasn't using them and it was all done on an 'old boy network' 'basis.

 

But now roll that forward a couple of decades - all operators are working on a wholly commercial basis in one form or another and looking carefully at their costs.  If I was still there no way would I 'lend' anyone one of my contracted paths - I would (even as an 'old school' railwayman) expect some sort of pecuniary advantage for my employer in the shape of either a 'hire fee' or a rebate on my access charges in just the same way that I started in 1994 to hire out Drivers and locos to those who needed them and could pay my prices.  Now apply that across the board and I would be surprised if there was any business (=TOC, freight operator and so on) who would be prepared to, in effect, give money to another operator.

 

Thus where you have multiple operators and only one of them is in an 'alliance' what sort of decision process can you sensibly achieve with the operator part of that alliance forever, rightly, looking at their bottom line?  You might not (in my view probably will not) get the best 'network' decisions and any secondary operators are likely to suffer.  Now apply that process to somewhere like, say, Reading where there are three TOCs and at least one occasional open access passenger operator plus several freight operators with their varied requirements and priorities.  I cannot honestly see how decisions input by one operator, of several, would necessarily result in the right overall decision.

 

Going back to the 1990s I was very closely involved in developing and running table top exercises designed to introduce those - such as merchant bankers and various advisors of all sorts - to how a railway would work and how situations requiring 'network' decisions would arise and what impacts could come out of such decisions.  It was obvious the thinking of many of them was very different from a 'network optimal' based approach and centred around protecting 'their business' in the exercises.  At the time I thought just how daft that made a 'disintegrated' railway look but the reality of the situation as it has developed has proved to me that the decision to have a  separate infrastructure authority actually has made considerable sense.  destroying that discipline/separation will - I'm afraid - simply introduce another nonsense and lose one thing in privatisation which (once Railtrack had gone) has actually worked (most of the time).  The separation actually solved the problem BR had spent nearly 4 decades trying to solve despite teh fact that many of us expected it to have the opposite effect.

[brianusa]

I have waded through this extensive topic and am not much further ahead than at the beginning.  As someone who is far removed from these goings on, could someone in as few sentences as possible tell me what's it all about, please.  I have a rough idea but its got so complicated that any thoughts I may have don't make much sense, even to me!  So what else is new, you might add, but any insight would be appreciated.

 

Brian.

[Lord-Claud-Hamilton]

I have been thinking carefully about what is proposed and the main thing which has emerged from my thoughts is that Govt/Grayling/DafT is actually taking one of the most critically helpful aspects of privatisation and reducing it to a far more complex and potentially unworkable situation than is currently the case and what's more it appears to be being proposed purely from a viewpoint of ignorance.

 

I hope I don't sound too cynical, but could this be  ".....a deliberate attempt to make a Public Sector entity fail", rather than 'ignorance'?

 

"We've tried everything we can think of to make NR work, including the biggest investment in the Railways since Victorian times, and it still doesn't. What else can we do but ask the Private Sector to do the job?" 

 

Probably just me getting carried away with my 'Conspiracy Theories' again. I'm sure we would have noticed if something like this had happened before in the Public Sector. 

Edited December 6, 2016 by Lord-Claud-Hamilton

[Ron Ron Ron]

Chris Grayling answered many of the questions being posed here, in "the house" earlier today.

It was broadcast live on BBC Parliament.

I only saw about half an hour of it though, before I had to go out.

 

From what was said, he is clearly aware of the difficulties involved in areas where more than one TOC is operating and also mentioned that FOC's and Open Access operators would have to be taken into account.

The impression I got from watching him speak, was that he seems to have quite a decent "handle" on the current situation and where the main issues lie.

 

 

.

[Mike Storey]

I hope I don't sound too cynical, but could this be  ".....a deliberate attempt to make a Public Sector entity fail", rather than 'ignorance'?

 

"We've tried everything we can think of to make NR work, including the biggest investment in the Railways since Victorian times, and it still doesn't. What else can we do but ask the Private Sector to do the job?" 

 

Probably just me getting carried away with my 'Conspiracy Theories' again. I'm sure we would have noticed if something like this had happened before in the Public Sector. 

 

I always prefer "cock-up" theory to conspiracy, but, I assume you have been utterly ironic in your last sentence, for which you should be applauded.

[Mike Storey]

I have waded through this extensive topic and am not much further ahead than at the beginning.  As someone who is far removed from these goings on, could someone in as few sentences as possible tell me what's it all about, please.  I have a rough idea but its got so complicated that any thoughts I may have don't make much sense, even to me!  So what else is new, you might add, but any insight would be appreciated.

 

Brian.

 

I will have a go. The proposal attempts to impose an arrangement between the dominant TOC on a route and NR, to have joint decision making, within a single, artificial construct, that somehow overcomes the adversarial contractual relationship that the current access contracts and leases encourage. It has appeared to work on a minute-by-minute decision making basis, by the use of joint Route Controls, but that idea does not need an Alliance. We had that in York in GNER days, which also included Northern Rail. But all other aspects have only been tried on the SW route, since disbanded due to Stagecoach getting the huff over not being allowed an automatic franchise extension, and currently in Scotland, where anecdotal evidence so far suggests things are getting worse (but we don't know if Alliancing is the cause or just a coincidence)

 

The other part of the proposal is that the mostly new railway between Oxford and Cambridge will be operated, maintained and, presumably, repaired and renewed, by the eventual franchisee. This would set it up as a mini version of one of the Big Four, but without the freight control or income, but the detail of how that will work, in respect of landlord, other TOC's and FOC's and other relationships, is awaited. This is supposed to provide a cost comparison between a third party and NR. Given that such a comparison is already available, in LUL, DLR, HS1 and so on, the logic is not quite apparent (and the one summary of a study I have read, by Ernst & Young about 10 years ago, commissioned by Iain Coucher, suggests that NR comes out quite favourably). The response to this will be that those are all different to main line railway operations, as though Varsity Rail will be comparable. You decide.

 

The key point missed by almost everyone, is that the railways are renewed and enhanced by the private sector already. It is under contract to a state body, that is true. But their record when undertaking maintenance was so appalling, that they were divested of that, asap. They are not pro-active when it does not suit their bottom line. So either the contracts are wrong (and almost every variation of the type of contract you can have, which all include incentivisation and penalty clauses in them), has been tried, or the basic theoretical premise does not work. After all, the Big Four did not contract out basic stuff like this, and only used third parties for seriously major work. 

 

Until we really, really know why GWEP has become such a clusterf..k, or why planned renewals are so far behind in most disciplines, or why transitional arrangements on major projects have been so difficult, we can only theorise. And that is what we do, in large quantity on here. It is no wonder that government are doing the same.

[caradoc]

I am also among those not entirely sure exactly what is being proposed. Chris Grayling says he wants Network Rail and the TOCs to work more closely together, a laudable aim for sure, but in reality they already do work closely together, otherwise nothing would ever get done !

 

As far as managing disruptive incidents is concerned, Network Rail and TOC and FOC Controls work closely together, but make no mistake, each TOC/FOC is interested ONLY in maintaining their own services (not their fault, that is their job); The duty of balancing conflicting requirements can only rest with a body independent of all operators, ie Network Rail. The only change to Control arrangements required is to encourage, if not dictate, that wherever practical (and it is not always), Network Rail and TOC/FOC Controls should be co-located.

 

The BBC News tonight had a reporter at Luton, because the East Midlands franchise will be one of the pioneers of the new system; What a pity he didn't think (or know enough) to mention that other operators also use that route, and question how that will be managed. I cannot see how what appears to be proposed is going to simplify anything, instead it will introduce even more complication and contractual relationships. 

 

As regards the Varsity Line experiment, Zomboid queried how this would be a fair comparison; A very good point, especially as by the time it is completed it will be a brand new or at least recently renewed, purpose built line, which the other 99.9% of the rail network certainly is not !

[Foulounoux]

Having also waded through this I can see a lot of why it won't work but little of what will work given the following constraints

 

 

1. That the current separation of infrastructure and operator is seen by the general public as confusing and high profile comments and pressure on government to address this

 

2. That full scale nationalisation is not on the horizon. Wishing for it won't change that political situation

 

3. Funding will continue to be tight. Save the local hospital or reduce train fares easy to see which one will win

 

4. Old scale time served railwaymen as senior managers is also less likely in the modern world as it is for any profession

 

And please no we shouldn't start from here, here is where we are like it or not

 

So given the above what are the alternatives And as someone who travels extensively on business in Germany and in France have a local service of around 3-4 trains a day I don't belive the grass is greener on the continent.

 

I always thought I had a clear opinion on this but it's not so clear

 

 

Colin

Edited December 6, 2016 by Foulounoux

[Classsix T]

Don't worry folks, the Miniature for Transport probably doesn't know what he's on about either!

 

Roll on 2020...jeez.

 

C6T.

[Nearholmer]

To me, the east/west matter is a bit of a red herring.

 

The issue there (well, here, in my case), is that there isn't enough publicly-funded capital available to take it forward at the pace needed and desired. What this appears to be is a way of accessing private-sector funding, with the idea of getting on with the job a bit quicker, and spreading the cost of the capital works into a (presumably lengthy) period of service charges. A PFI by any other name????

 

I can imagine that it can be made to work, although getting some of the more complex bits right in terms of contractual detail won't be easy. But, I can also imagine that it will prove to be a much more expensive way to get to the desired place than public funding of the capital works would be.

 

And, when it is made to work, I can't imagine that it will provide many genuinely transferable lessons ........ it is too peculiar a case.

 

Kevin

[jjb1970]

I think the c*ck up theory is much closer the mark than reading purposeful nefarious intent into most political initiatives.

 

Something to remember is that all politicians want to be re-elected (or if you're Wolmar, to be elected) and to achieve that they want to have a positive impact and to be seen to have improved things (or at the very least not made them worse). Now clearly you can do a certain amount with sleighs of hand and information management, but at some point they have to be able to demonstrate something substantive. And after the era of a certain prime minister who governed for a decade from the late 90's people are much more sensitive to attempts to replace substance with presentation and politicians are aware of that. Beyond that, call me naïve but I genuinely believe that the great majority of politicians do want to improve things. Their ideas may be wrong (in some cases very wrong) and they may be guilty of spin and manipulation to win political points but with few exceptions I think they are sincere in holding political beliefs grounded in a desire to do something right. So they are not setting out to sink things or cause devastation.

 

Similarly, it is too easy to dismiss these people and civil servants as being stupid. I'm probably more critical of government departments than most on this board yet certainly those civil servants I have dealt with at the MoD and DECC (as it was) were absolutely not thick or lacking in intelligence, quite the opposite. Many of the poor decisions I found have been based in the KPIs set for individuals and the priorities that people are set. If an individuals next evaluation and career move depends on delivery something that is tightly defined then they will do their best to achieve that. They may be fully aware that the consequences will be dire if looked at from a wider perspective but that is somebody else's problem. The one exception I found was the NHS where I found dealing with them on energy supply contracts was like stepping into some sort of bizarre parallel universe where ineptitude was the way to success.

 

Which isn't saying anything about the current issues other than to suggest that cold war style Kremlinology to look for deeper meaning and conspiracies about these changes is a waste of time. The idea is either good or bad but it is highly unlikely to be some plot within a plot straight out of the novel "Dune".