RMweb Gold Graham_Muz Posted February 20 RMweb Gold Share Posted February 20 Great British Railways (GBR) is not to happen anymore It's now the Integrated Rail Body a version of Network Rail in control. The draft rail reform bill is here... https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/draft-rail-reform-bill 1 1 3 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
woodenhead Posted February 20 Share Posted February 20 (edited) From https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/65d36d29e1bdec431f322226/draft-rail-reform-bill-impact-assessment.pdf It was pretty well organised up to 1994 covering all aspects of rail transportation in the UK, then something happened that fragmented the whole thing, created lots of organisations and sub contracts, separated infrastructure and operations and generally caused the situation we have today whilst subsidising rail operations in other notably European neighbour countries.... Edited February 20 by woodenhead 2 8 2 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Gold Dagworth Posted February 20 RMweb Gold Share Posted February 20 2 hours ago, Graham_Muz said: Great British Railways (GBR) is not to happen anymore It's now the Integrated Rail Body a version of Network Rail in control. The draft rail reform bill is here... https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/draft-rail-reform-bill Little chance of it progressing to law now with the election due this year https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2024/feb/20/governments-draft-rail-reform-bill-published-fittingly-late-labour-says 3 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
ess1uk Posted February 23 Share Posted February 23 On 20/02/2024 at 15:21, Graham_Muz said: Great British Railways (GBR) is not to happen anymore It's now the Integrated Rail Body a version of Network Rail in control. The draft rail reform bill is here... https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/draft-rail-reform-bill Still going to be GBR Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
ess1uk Posted February 26 Share Posted February 26 (edited) What will the Rail Reform Bill do? - YouTube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XV1gSftqv1E Edited February 26 by ess1uk Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Gold The Stationmaster Posted February 26 RMweb Gold Share Posted February 26 On 20/02/2024 at 15:52, woodenhead said: From https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/65d36d29e1bdec431f322226/draft-rail-reform-bill-impact-assessment.pdf It was pretty well organised up to 1994 covering all aspects of rail transportation in the UK, then something happened that fragmented the whole thing, created lots of organisations and sub contracts, separated infrastructure and operations and generally caused the situation we have today whilst subsidising rail operations in other notably European neighbour countries.... Clearly the bloke who wrote that had not a clue about how things were managed under BR. Nice example cross country services now part of XC involved XC, the operator, dealing with the respective NR Zones through which its trains run. So one operator and 4 or 5 infrastructure access points of contact. Under BR InterCity with Cross Country managed as a sub-sector it was exactly the same as that. Pre InterCity Cross-Country sub-sector instead of one operator.business it additionally involved commercial management input from eacjh Region (5) giving a total of 10 organisations all having their two penn'rth and large meetings several times a year to secure agreement between them. As there is now a national access planning team then only two parties will be currently involved. You can't make it any simpler than that and the operator still needs contractual protection of its paths or you go back to the dog-eat-dog situation in respect of line capacity that existed in BR days. So why bother to change it? 1 2 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Gold adb968008 Posted March 13 RMweb Gold Share Posted March 13 Help me understand this… The proposal is a GBR that is outside the civil service, and state control, that will basically be BR but handing out franchises, contracts rather than operating its own trains and making its own (ostensibly) decisions on planning and operations. Whos going to own it, and aside of the ORR, whom its apparently going to pay, (conflict of interest ?) who will it answer to ? 1 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
eldomtom2 Posted March 13 Share Posted March 13 3 hours ago, adb968008 said: Help me understand this… The proposal is a GBR that is outside the civil service, and state control, that will basically be BR but handing out franchises, contracts rather than operating its own trains and making its own (ostensibly) decisions on planning and operations. Whos going to own it, and aside of the ORR, whom its apparently going to pay, (conflict of interest ?) who will it answer to ? It'll be outside of state control in the same way that BR was and Network Rail is - that is, not very much. 2 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Premium phil-b259 Posted March 13 RMweb Premium Share Posted March 13 27 minutes ago, eldomtom2 said: It'll be outside of state control in the same way that BR was and Network Rail is - that is, not very much. EXACTLY Anyone who thinks that this new body is somehow going to be able to escape from doing what Whitehall / Politicians / Civil servants tell it what to do is living in cloud cockoo land….. 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Gold adb968008 Posted March 13 RMweb Gold Share Posted March 13 (edited) 1 hour ago, phil-b259 said: EXACTLY Anyone who thinks that this new body is somehow going to be able to escape from doing what Whitehall / Politicians / Civil servants tell it what to do is living in cloud cockoo land….. As long as the tax payer is paying in, the government will have an outsized political stake. I guess if this framework takes off, the government could seek to offload the IRB as a franchise to a private player, and thus get the tax payer stake off its back., whilst retaining influence but putting it in the private sector. (that proposed act is very clear IRB employees aren't going to be government / crown employees). This could put the IRB as a mcdonalds corporation… a big land owner, network of franchises and arbitrartor of matching service to demand, whilst not making many burgers itself. It feels similar motions are taking place with the NHS, and all these BBC backed promotions for testing the population, for various diseases, whilst the service is on its knees for capacity is an exercise in building a business case of showing demand for services to interested bidders in taking on the NHS trusts and hospitals network. The government is broke, bottom line. It will need to turn cost centres into revenue streams and offload them… the Government has a special way with doing that through the decades.. separating the Post office from the GPO was a good example. I dont see another way for the government to offload 90% of gdp in debt, plus interest.. it’ll be a great carrot in a US trade deal too. Edited March 13 by adb968008 1 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wheatley Posted March 13 Share Posted March 13 BR staff were not Crown or HMG employees, although we did get the extra Tuesdays off after BH Mondays (managers did anyway). We didn't get the Queen's birthday off which my civil service mate did. It will be outside state control in the sense that it can do whatever it likes with the money the Treasury gives it, within the framework set by the DfT and the rules set by the Treasury on what exactly it is allowed to do with it. Just like BR. 1 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
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