Network Rail privatisation

[St. Simon]

Hi,

 

It must be remembered chaps that all this is 'might happen', it's only a possibility at this stage, others things could happen. Should we be refraining from comment until we know what is going to happen.

 

We also must remember that a change in Network Rail will effect their employees of which RMWEB has several including myself, as well as projects and the railways. So please don't forget that.

 

Simom

[brianusa]

Without getting too political as Simon says, its only a possibility.  The new party leader is appeasing members who favour such an agenda.  Wait till reality sets in before worrying about the railways.

 

Brian.

[4630]

Without getting too political as Simon says, its only a possibility.  The new party leader is appeasing members who favour such an agenda.  Wait till reality sets in before worrying about the railways.

 

Brian.

Whilst the above is true Brian, I believe that the OP was actually referring to a report that has been instigated by the current Conservative Government, not any future Labour Government, and is due to be published over the next few months.

[The Stationmaster]

that was only during the last few years of BR, during which time it operated very differently from before and was effectively being prepared for possible privatisation.

Not really as distinctions started to come in as soon as Selective Pricing was introduced and especially so with reduced tickets such as Apex or the various (almost) equivalents.  In effect what happened was that the old pooling agreements ceased to exist in theory as well as in practice.  Once the Sectors took over 'business management' which was of course sometime before privatisation and nothing to do with it greater distinctions began to emerge.

 

I cannot see how any of that would change under the 'people's railway' theme - unless of course all trains become one class and fares are based entirely and solely on mileage or pooled mileage.

[brianusa]

Railways in one shape or another have been a lifetime interest for me and continue to do so. As we are far from the centre of action, my only info comes from any news source such as magazines, internet and sites such as this. I appreciate the contributions from posters and value their comments, also any corrections to posts made herein which enable me to continue to appreciate my (very)long time hobby.

 

Brian.

[Mike Storey]

I think some on this thread are missing the big grey thing sitting in the corner of the auditorium.

 

Whatever the current difficulties are of delivering major projects, they are not new by any means whatsoever - BR were pretty crap at delivering more than one big thing at a time, and I know because I was one of them. Take a long look at what happened to the original concept of ECML electrification and compare it to what eventually transpired. Rose tinted specs are being used about past glories but the BRB, as much as they tried, were heavily infiltrated by jobsworths from the ministry and lived day to day against horrifically short term cash flows, including for projects.

 

The fact is that the government has a singular duty and this one is failing at it quite embarrassingly. They have no transport strategy. Look at airports, roads and ports as well as rail. No-one can point at any one directing mind or policy, other than just another set of individual sound-bites for each mode. The Highways Agency complain of much the same thing, and, whichever-deity-you-choose help them, they are now under the ORR too.

 

They have not posed the question as to what they expect the railways to achieve and, when they have, to let others more expert decide to how to do that. For example, are the railways to be run as an integrated system, with integrated development towards a given aim (such as ensuring the improvement of the nation's GDP), and how much is the government prepared to see that cost? Or are the railways to be run as a free market which determines its own future? At present we have a very uncomfortable mix where public and private interests clash acutely. NR produce the basis (using input from most stakeholders) to propose each five year plan, but against a long term strategy which changes every five years. It is a nonsense. Nicola Shaw (who is very, very good, having risen up the ranks to Route Director within NR before running HS1) may come up with some proposals about funding, structure and so on, but it is all set against a status quo that is a vacuum.

 

Fanciful you might say, but London (TfL) have done it, and Scotland (TfS) are doing it. Both are run by highly competent "civil servants". Neither are suggesting that they know how to run the thing, but they have set out a very understandable, muti-mode strategy and seek to support it through funding, enabling and, in many cases, procurement. NR are very heavily and successfully involved in both. I would hope that Ms Shaw will use those models as exemplars. DfT has some very experienced railway people alongside the numpties. Just what is going wrong there, again? This is plainly not about party politics, as both London and Scotland have seen changes of hue in their masters, but the strategy hardly changed. There was consensus. Is it the lack of a stable strategy perhaps? To subvert a Wolmarism, what are governments for?

[Not Captain Kernow]

that was only during the last few years of BR, during which time it operated very differently from before and was effectively being prepared for possible privatisation.

I suppose it depends on  your definition of the last few years of BR.  Certainly during the mid 1980s such tickets were in abundance.  As an example from Haslemere (where I started in the booking office) to Exeter there were four prices - via London, via Reading, via Salisbury and via Portsmouth, the last two of which were substantially cheaper than the first two.  Apex tickets were also only available from London Terminals, so separate tickets were needed to / from London, although they did change that a year or two after their introduction.

 

There have always been ticket anomalies - we used to sell tickets to Wanborough if you were going to Guildford and Brookwood if you were going to Woking.  Lots more similar examples and although local staff would know this, I doubt anyone buying tickets from way out of the area were told this as it was impossible for every booking office everywhere to know all the cheaper fiddles like these. 

[Glorious NSE]

Let's be honest here, everybody thought the pacers would have gone long before now. Due to DFT incompetence, we are only now getting rid of them.

One TOC will be getting rid of them as there is a very public political promise backed up by TOC plans to do so, a second would have but those plans depend on the routes being electrified in time which is starting to be doubtful, the third operator of them had a nice cascade all lined up which now seems to be subject to meddling from above.

 

I don't think they are dead yet.

[Vanders]

They have not posed the question as to what they expect the railways to achieve and, when they have, to let others more expert decide to how to do that. For example, are the railways to be run as an integrated system, with integrated development towards a given aim (such as ensuring the improvement of the nation's GDP), and how much is the government prepared to see that cost? Or are the railways to be run as a free market which determines its own future? At present we have a very uncomfortable mix where public and private interests clash acutely. NR produce the basis (using input from most stakeholders) to propose each five year plan, but against a long term strategy which changes every five years. It is a nonsense. Nicola Shaw (who is very, very good, having risen up the ranks to Route Director within NR before running HS1) may come up with some proposals about funding, structure and so on, but it is all set against a status quo that is a vacuum.

One thing that confuses me about this argument is that it's only applied to railways. I don't see how public ownership of the infrastructure of the railways with private operators using it is in any way different to public ownership of the road infrastructure. Yet I don't ever see anyone calling for the mass privatisation of our roads?

[Reorte]

One thing that confuses me about this argument is that it's only applied to railways. I don't see how public ownership of the infrastructure of the railways with private operators using it is in any way different to public ownership of the road infrastructure. Yet I don't ever see anyone calling for the mass privatisation of our roads?

The roads are much more open to anyone to use them. The railways may have a few open access operators now but that doesn't really compare to any Tom, Dick, or Harry being able to run a train on them where and when they like (and of course it would be utterly impossibly impractical to do so). So being a much more tightly controlled environment by their very nature there's less of the necessary public utility argument for the railways.

 

When it comes to roads motorways arguably come closest to railways, and are also the ones most likely to be privately run.

[Purley Oaks]

I think some on this thread are missing the big grey thing sitting in the corner of the auditorium.

 

Whatever the current difficulties are of delivering major projects, they are not new by any means whatsoever - BR were pretty crap at delivering more than one big thing at a time, and I know because I was one of them. Take a long look at what happened to the original concept of ECML electrification and compare it to what eventually transpired. Rose tinted specs are being used about past glories but the BRB, as much as they tried, were heavily infiltrated by jobsworths from the ministry and lived day to day against horrifically short term cash flows, including for projects.

 

Very strong arguments there, Mike. I don't know about all of the ins and outs of ECML electrification, although it only seemed to get going once EU (or EC then, I think) funds were released to help pay for it. There was so much political ideology washing around then with the Conservative government not wishing to invest much in BR, and one of their acolytes, Alfred Sherman, advocating closing all railways and converting them to roads.

Hopefully we've moved on since then.

Mal

[The Stationmaster]

The problem has long been getting a consistent and sensible policy out of the politicos.  Because they work on a short term basis they probably have difficulty seeing anything on a longer term basis and it's only if there is a relatively strong immediate management able to inject long term though that you will stand a chance of getting any on a  consistent basis.  The BRB did that for the railway industry but it was cash-strapped overall and had to make decisions on priorities but in doing so it could, and did in many respects, leaven the political aspect and flavours of the month.

 

The present structure doesn't really allow that - it was originally - following privatisation - in the hands of the SRA and, in sone respects, the Franchising Director but due to changes made by politicians it has dropped back into a big bureaucratic ORR blob with the RSSB making its inputs of ideas on the side.  So, as Mike Storey has said, there is a clear need to sort out the overall strategic situation but as that has never happened on a long term basis since 1948 I reserve judgement on the ability of the politicos to deliver it now.  Plenty of short term fixes, some of which were good and some were bad, but almost inevitably they were altered because of political fiddling with them.

 

But getting that right is one thing.  Getting the way NR does things is quite another and again I do wonder about the lack of understanding within it and the gulf which exists between the front line and those making many decisions - even on relatively small scale schemes - where mistakes are made and of which I have not only seen examples but have heard of many more.  If the organisation is to deliver whatever happens to be required it is as important to get that right as it is for Govt to give a clear lead.

[Mike Storey]

The point I made Mike was that such long termism does exist in London and Scotland, and increasingly Wales, despite political changes every several years. So it is possible. It certainly exists in Germany but has fractured badly in France. Consensus existed in the UK in the '60's through to the early '90's - the railways were doomed and we all needed to find a way to let it die in the cheapest possible way. Suddenly, railways really matter again and the consensus is trying to catch up.

 

Hence blaming NR for a vote-seeking, sudden surge in massive enhancement approvals, totally unexpected in 2010, for which NR and the industry were totally unprepared, other than in the mind of Paul Plummer (Director of NR planning and the editor of the CP5 funding submission), seems irrational to me. He is a highly intelligent chap and very competent at economics and process, but is not familiar with how to build or run railways. For that we must look to a person who recently left NR to run HS2, but whose previous experience had been in the defence industry. He well knew about the need for smoothing contractors' workloads and forward planning, and enabled many innovative ways and means during his tenure in NR. But, he was a child of Coucher's regime, and you never said no to Coucher, NR is still recovering from that.

 

We have all agreed, above and other threads, that consistency in investment is the only sensible way to achieve efficiency and effectiveness. NR suffers from big company syndrome no more than any other, and probably better than most, due to the constant institutional attention to almost everything they do. Most anecdotal tales of dysfunction are worthy of the Daily Mail and should be considered as such. The major contractors only complain when they get found out, and many of the present occupants of senior NR positions came from those very contractors, as well as from TOCs. There are some ravingly incompetent jobsworths in NR and there are clearly some structural problems, but nobody watches the 99% (official) things that go right.

 

Take London Bridge, which everyone loves to do. Some have mentioned the crazy planning saga which beset the many years of T2000. But none have mentioned the consensus that was reached, with the TOCs, with DfT and with P Focus, when it became plain that the TT proposed could not technically work, but that they would try it anyway, as the lesser devil compared to major reduction in commuter services for three years. Yes, NR got it wrong with the concourse CIS and circulation design, but that (as far as I can ascertain) was based on advice from concourse dynamic flow software modelling provided by a very highly respected contractor (who also did Kings Cross IIRC, which went very well). They have now put that and the TT into a much better state, but you won't see that in the papers, nor on here.

 

Bath and bathwater are very much connected and Gerald Fiennes was so right - bleed and make the politicos happy, but it won't solve the fundamental problem.

[The Stationmaster]

Agree absolutely re Scotland - very single minded as a Govt in setting a railway strategy and then both implementing it and occasionally altering their original set order of schemes for good practical reasons (and occasionally for other reasons but the strategy is still there as a final goal).

 

London yes (I see tonight on tv that protests have already started about some Crossrail 2 works) so things are developing reasonably well.  Not so sure about Wales but that is lack of information.  The NR situation for CP5 was probably over ambitious (I thought so at the time) but you've explained why and shown how internal politics - with a small 'p' - can have an impact.  But that doesn't explain some of what has clearly gone on, or not gone on, on GWML electrification where a lot of what has happened seems to be at the detail level rather than the high level although delays to the high output train have obviously had an effect.  And it is at the detail level where so many things in NR seem not to go in ether the most efficient or most cost effective way or even (in an instance I heard of very recently plus something I came across a couple of years back) the safest way.

 

Hence I see their problems as being at two levels.  Firstly the strategic one, which you have covered in some depth.  And secondly in the minutiae of managing a railway and works taking place on it.  Both would seem to need attention.

[Mike Storey]

At the very great risk of boring everyone to death, I would just like to ensure everyone who has an interest and will no doubt talk about this in the pub/church hall/club room/on facebook or to themselves, is aware of the actualitee.

 

Mike states above, quite rationally, that NR need to get a grip (pun intended) on the detail of delivery, especially in project management. That could be where Shaw N takes a long look:

 

Up to GRIP stage 4, NR retains strong control, whilst using contractors to do much of the donkey work in at least 3 and 4 (option selection and then outline design, which produces a budget price but with a lot of known unknowns and unknown unknowns (Dick Chaney was right). Hence the budget includes a high contingency figure, to which the DfT/Treasury adds an "optimism bias" i.e. more contingency. The risks also include time as well as money. Quality is assumed as immovable.

 

At GRIP 5 through to GRIP 7, contractors bid for the work, normally against either a fixed price, or a target price, in which gains or losses are shared up to a certain amount (which recently has become the new black). GRIP 5 is detailed design, which requires site conditions to be investigated in much greater detail, completion of which can determine a final price and timescale which is subject to commercial renegotiation, subject to the contract (often the contractor is bu**ered at this point, hence they load their original bid price with enough to fit out their entire Board with Rolls Royces). The financial risk of getting this right thus transfers, at the start of GRIP 5, from NR to the winning contractor or contractors (in an alliance, some of this risk is retained by NR, or by a further third party who coordinates the alliance). However, the reputational risk, and to a very large extent, the timescale risk (due to consequent impacts on other projects and on contractual obligations to TOCs/FOCs etc, remains totally with NR. It is GRIP 6 (project construction) and GRIP 7 (testing and commissioning) where some major projects have gone very wrong in public perception, but it is more often during GRIP 5 where the crime was originally committed. NR is blamed, but the current contractual model does not give them much control other than financial and the odd safety and quality checks.

 

NR do not have the staff to check that everything the contractor has said in their bid, is true. If they did, they would be duplicating the contractor and costs would rocket even further. They have to trust the contractor(s) based not only on their submission, but on previous experience, of that/those contractor(s) and of previous similar work. There's the rub - there is hardly anyone left who has experience pf previous electrification on this scale, using the new equipment and building the brand new design of standard OLE. Chief Inspector Hindsight naturally informs us that this was never going to work. But who was going to say no? In any reorganisation/restructuring, who will say no, not in this timescale, next time?

 

Management of the detail is essential, as Mike says, but how do you manage it any more than now without raising costs which are already under severe criticism? But also, how do you guarantee that a politoco's sound bite is as good as done.......The private sector will not touch this with a very long, thin thing used in the past to move small boats.

 

The Paramedics are on standby for anyone who has read this far.

[The Stationmaster]

As far as building the new design of ohle is concerned the only real problem on GWML seems to have been the sinking of the tubes (or not sinking them) and initial erection of masts (the gap syndrome) and the latter is in many cases the result of the former.  That in my view points very firmly at the GRIP 5 stage although obviously some other difficulties have emerged in various ways during the actual work.

 

It might be that other problems could emerge as the work progresses but it is, regrettably, too early to judge but some works have clearly been carried out in the correct timescale such as sub/feeder stations.  Best not to mention the signalling work I think

[96701]

Access planning seems to be at the wrong end as well. It seems to me that NR plan the possessions to carry out the work before the contractors have even begun to plan the work, so they need to apply for late notice or boot maintenance out of their possessions. It all adds to the cost and the inability to deliver the schemes to time or budget.

[corneliuslundie]

Back to the bigger picture. I suspect that it has always been impossible to get a long term view out of politicians. However, it seems to be worse than it used to be because none of the major political parties seem to have policies any more, but respond to the media with sound bites and knee jerk reactions. This is partly because the type of people who become politicians has changed, but partly because of the strength of the media. Even 15 years ago I was told by someone working for what was then the Department of Energy that they spent most of their time producing projects for politicians to announce. This got the press coverage (for the politicians). but once they were under way the press lost interest, so the politicians wanted new "initiatives" to announce, and last month's exciting project was forgotten, and often abandoned because it no longer got news coverage (unless it went spectacularly wrong). And this was the same whichever party was in power.

 

Of course, politicians also like opening new things, but these have usually been initiated by their predecessors, even though the current incumbent of course claims the glory.

 

Apply this to railways, airports, new hospitals or anything with a time scale longer than a few months (apart for some reason defence projects, which also have a track record of going spectacularly pear shaped), and there is not much hope of sensible decision making, especially as there is no policy framework, and certainly no strategy, against which to make those decisions. I would say more but I would be entering into party politics (even though I don't like any of them).

 

Jonathan

[Mark Saunders]

The big problem with British Politics is it is too short term, with a change of governing party all hell bent on changing anything the previous one has done just for political dogma!

 

The Chinese are the only ones playing the long game as the West is only interested in five years!

 

Then there is the National Debt which is the current fashion and how to show that debt is private rather than public, hence why the annoyance of Network Rail now being showing as public!

 

No mention is now made of The Balance of Trade which was the 70's hot potato, how much money leaves the country compared with comes in?

 

Mark Saunders

[The Stationmaster]

Access planning seems to be at the wrong end as well. It seems to me that NR plan the possessions to carry out the work before the contractors have even begun to plan the work, so they need to apply for late notice or boot maintenance out of their possessions. It all adds to the cost and the inability to deliver the schemes to time or budget.

This has been a persistent problem since privatisation although there are answers to it.  Firstly any work within Rules of The Route should be straightforward to plan to suit the window which is created within Rules.  That has long been the case on the better regulated parts of the railway where 'within Rules' possessions were always jointly planned between engineers, operators, and with a good look at event etc diaries by the commercial folk.  A different kind of problem comes with possessions which are outside Rules but again it should be relatively simple - the booking horizon is at least 12 weeks (probably more now as the target was 6 months a good while back) and to be honest if someone hasn't got an idea of how long a job will take at a suitable process margin before that horizon they ought not to be planning anything bigger than a vicarage tea party.

 

But all of this requires discipline in the planning stage and working to timescales and it was very evident in Railtrack days on Southern Zone days that was not always happening - until the train operators had a chance to talk directly to engineering contractors when - in my experience - we rapidly found answers through trying to understand the constraints the two of us were working to.  Interestingly the Reading scheme, and some larger GWML works associated with Crossrail and electrification, have usually seemingly had no difficulty in achieving, and often, bettering those horizons.  If it can be done for some massive jobs like that why can't it be done all the time?  (and yes I realise there have been some overruns but in many cases they too have been down to poor planning.

 

As with many other things it is really a simple matter of discipline within a system - if you know the day by which the answer is required you need to make sure you ask the question(s) in time to achieve that deadline.  And timetable production timescales have been around for longer than I can remember - and that, together with any booking horizon requirement, has to be where you start and what you work backwards from and not forget that extra time will be required if jobs involve more extensive train alterations.

[phil-b259]

 or boot maintenance out of their possessions.

 

Oh definitely. This happens far, far too much which is great for the project but doesn't help the rest of use when they have packed up and gone home - and of course if work is allowed, the p-way ALWAYS get first dibs on track access. Message to NR high command you do have other departments to think about you know...

[The Stationmaster]

Oh definitely. This happens far, far too much which is great for the project but doesn't help the rest of use when they have packed up and gone home - and of course if work is allowed, the p-way ALWAYS get first dibs on track access. Message to NR high command you do have other departments to think about you know...

Don't the other depts get a look in at the pre-planninhg meetings Phil?  Or don't you have such meetings nowadays?  

[jjb1970]

I have no idea if this is applicable to NR but something I found when involved in defence programs was that there is a reluctance to spend money at the early stages as there is a perception that spending money on the initial conceptual, scoping and planning elements prior to doing anything in terms of actual production is wasted money. Yet the whole point of doing significant work before entering into production contracts is pretty much precisely to answer a lot of the major risks being discussed here and to try and ensure that the product selected was the product which was wanted/needed, to identify and evaluate program risks and try and ensure that the program costs and schedules were realistic. People in procurement pretty well accept the value of spending up front this but politically it is seen as wasted money not helped by the fact that since organisations often depend on external resource (such as my last employer in the case of MoD warship programs) to do a lot of the leg work it is seen as just wasting money by lining the pockets of consultants.

[phil-b259]

Don't the other depts get a look in at the pre-planninhg meetings Phil? Or don't you have such meetings nowadays?

I'm nowhere near high enough up the chain of command to go to such meetings, but we have definitely had occasions where we have been denied access to possessions because the 'owner' says no - even when it's obvious that it wouldn't take much effort to acomadate us. Funny how when it all goes wrong and stuff isn't working, suddenly the very same project managers / contractors can't get enough of us.

 

I believe this is partly because maintainence isn't 'sexy' enough for the top brass. You install a new footbridge, new signals of relay a couple of miles of track it is obvious to the untrained eye that lots has gone on and you get lots of nice, impressive before and after pics to shout about. Give us a block to undertake cyclical maintainence on a set of points in a red zone bared area or renew a line side multi core cable that is causing earth faults there isn't much outwardly visible to see.

 

As a general rule with regards to possessions it's projects first, then the p-way then, if nobody else comes along, us - though to be fair our p-way are usually pretty good at letting us in providing our work falls within an ES worksite (none of us have ES or competencies to set up our own worksite).

[Mike Storey]

All very laudable, but:

 

a) multi-functional possessions have long been an aspiration (and multi-functional projects are the pinnacle of that aspiration)

 

b) in a multi-functional project possession, the multi-disciplinary project manager/project director has direct control and total responsibility for all activities in his/her possessions. The buck stops there for whatever happens and that is not only fair but perceived as fair.

 

c) in a maintenance or renewal possession, the owner is normally the functional department with the most work (it used to be the case that it was the person in the first dept to book the possession on the graph, but that was changed even in my time). BUT that means that other departments using that possession, if allowed by the possession owner, do not cede control of their work to the possession owner (other than train movements and isolations between work sections within the possession). Hence, if the possession overruns, or there is a safety incident, the possession owner normally carries the can, at least initially. Thus

 

d) possession owners have no incentive to allow other works on to their site, beyond a general call to best practice/industry benefit/jolly good chap and all that. There is wide acceptance that other works should be accommodated where possible and sensible, but (unless things have changed in the last three years) a great disincentive for anyone to actually do it. Just look at the hoo-hah following the over-runs last Christmas, where just one element in each worksite caused mayhem, and an awful lot of grief for the possession owners.

 

Sort out © and then (d) will become more likely, and efficiency will improve. In our multi-disciplinary, national projects team, we offered, many years ago, to provide a third party possessions management service for maintenance and renewals. Internal politics made that still born, and it would have added cost to works anyway, but there must be a solution.