Rumblestripe Posted March 9, 2012 Share Posted March 9, 2012 Listening to the radio this morning I was slightly puzzled to hear that certain Train Operators are stating that punctuality will not improve until they are given control over the tracks. I found this supporting article on the web from "Rail Professional" http://www.railpro.co.uk/magazine/?idArticles=183 The odd thing is I seem to remember this being tried in the past, we used to call it something snappy like "British Railways", worked quite well as I recall... Anyway an interesting article. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Gold Captain Kernow Posted March 9, 2012 RMweb Gold Share Posted March 9, 2012 Interesting indeed, but not every TOC and most FOCs may not agree... Also, I believe we have to separate infrastructure from train operation, due to E.U. rules.... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
62613 Posted March 9, 2012 Share Posted March 9, 2012 Interesting indeed, but not every TOC and most FOCs may not agree... Also, I believe we have to separate infrastructure from train operation, due to E.U. rules.... But not two separate companies! The government, typically, 'gold plated' the EU directive. As far as I can work out, no other European railway has gone as far as we have. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Southernman46 Posted March 9, 2012 Share Posted March 9, 2012 Mrs SM has the consultation paperwork for the SWT/NR alliance - believe me it won't be anything like BR or NSE - at least they took due cognicence of the need for engineering works.............it scares the hell out of me for the future. Anyone remember the 1994 to Hatfield period ?? Train service over everything else until something breaks. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Glorious NSE Posted March 9, 2012 Share Posted March 9, 2012 To do it logically you'd also have to bring all the TOCs in-house as well though, as most infrastructure is used by more than one operator - and i'm positive that no TOCs will want that! I don't think the NR/Operator split is the worst thing about the current setup, in fact there are some advantages - for example there have been several TOCs that seemed pretty poor at running a train service, do you really want them responsible for maintaining the tracks too? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Southernman46 Posted March 9, 2012 Share Posted March 9, 2012 - for example there have been several TOCs that seemed pretty poor at running a train service, do you really want them responsible for maintaining the tracks too? and many (SWT included - and I've been on the receiving end of enough direct responses from "them" to understand the culture of this thinking) believe that they can - and THAT IS scary.......... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Max Stafford Posted March 10, 2012 Share Posted March 10, 2012 But not two separate companies! The government, typically, 'gold plated' the EU directive. As far as I can work out, no other European railway has gone as far as we have. Westminster Government loves the EU as it gives them a convenient scapegoat for their own lack of competence. I suspect other administrations may have been more restrained whilst observing what happened here and quite possibly judging that this is probably the way NOT to do it. Dave. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Gold Oldddudders Posted March 10, 2012 RMweb Gold Share Posted March 10, 2012 Anyone remember the 1994 to Hatfield period ?? Train service over everything else until something breaks. Yes, colleagues dealing with Railtrack at the highest level fumed over towering arrogance. It seemed they thought they had a cash-cow, with the former BRIS companies looking after maintenance - despite most having been bought by large civils firms who knew and cared nothing about railways - while they in RT sat on their thumbs and let the wonga roll in. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
APOLLO Posted March 10, 2012 Share Posted March 10, 2012 I won't join the political debate on this. But I hope the powers that be are fully geared up on the subject of Peak Oil, that is, we have / soon will have reached a peak in oil production / supply. From now on, with ever increasing demand for oil, especially in the developing world (BRIC), we will (allready are) witness (ing) ever increasing oli prices. This small, densley populated country will depend on its railways more and more, as people are financially squeezed out of their cars. If they are financially squeezed off the railways also, the country, and any percieved recovery will grind quickly to a complete halt. Brit15 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Natalie Graham Posted March 10, 2012 Share Posted March 10, 2012 I rather like the idea of vertical integration of train operators and tracks. The idea of all the train operators each having their own track, one above the other, is visually appealing even though it would be annoying if the one you wanted to travel on was on the top level. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fat Controller Posted March 10, 2012 Share Posted March 10, 2012 Correct, as far as I can interpret all that is required is the presentation of seperate accounts for operation and infrastructure and as mentioned earlier on this thread the seperate companies dogma was imposed on the system using E.C. leglisation as an excuse which was taken as being fact by the majority who shouted those of us down in every argument when it was pointed out that there was no need for seperate companies at all. The power of whitewash over substance once more. Most European railways seem to have gone for the 'separate companies' approach, rather than simply separating the accounts for infrastructure and train operation within one company. However, the 'separateness' can be quite questionable- in France, Infrastructure provision and management is nominally by RFF, but they subcontract infrastructure operation back to SNCF (including path allocation, the real bugbear for other operators), and deal mainly with strategic issues. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Premium phil-b259 Posted March 10, 2012 RMweb Premium Share Posted March 10, 2012 I won't join the political debate on this. But I hope the powers that be are fully geared up on the subject of Peak Oil, that is, we have / soon will have reached a peak in oil production / supply. From now on, with ever increasing demand for oil, especially in the developing world (BRIC), we will (allready are) witness (ing) ever increasing oli prices. This small, densley populated country will depend on its railways more and more, as people are financially squeezed out of their cars. If they are financially squeezed off the railways also, the country, and any percieved recovery will grind quickly to a complete halt. Brit15 People have been going on about Peak oil for ages, however I don't see it being a problem in my lifetime and if we are brutally honest neither do 90% of the electorate and by extension of that neither do Governments. In any cases oil prices have far more to do with worldwide politics and conflicts than anything else, not helped by the fact that for several countries (e.g. Saudi Arabia) oil money is the only source of government income and thus it is benifical if prices are high, if places like the middle east were more stable then we would see oil prices stablise overtime. Besides if oil does become scarce then I think we will have more to worry about than just fuel avalability. Even electric locos require lubricating oil and grease and what about all that cabling with its oil based insulation, or the interoir panneling used on many EMUS? I think if you actually look at it, fuel itself only accounts for a relativley small ammount of oil usage globally and while it is prudent to be economical with oil, assuming modal shift will make a big difference to oil consumption globally is flawed. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Premium phil-b259 Posted March 10, 2012 RMweb Premium Share Posted March 10, 2012 Most European railways seem to have gone for the 'separate companies' approach, rather than simply separating the accounts for infrastructure and train operation within one company. However, the 'separateness' can be quite questionable- in France, Infrastructure provision and management is nominally by RFF, but they subcontract infrastructure operation back to SNCF (including path allocation, the real bugbear for other operators), and deal mainly with strategic issues. IIRC there is a big push at the moment within the EU to end such arangements and force infrastructure and opperations into genuinely seperate companies. France in particular is singled out by the commision as being guilty of doing the absolute mimimum possable to comply with the directives issued thus far in an effort to retain SNCFs monopoly over the French railway system, while the Uk is praised for its approch in this respect. Its the same story with other things though, as France has also been criticised for not fully opening up its electricity market to non-french companies and hence all Camerons comments about free trade at the most recent EU summits. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Gold The Stationmaster Posted March 10, 2012 RMweb Gold Share Posted March 10, 2012 France has never been keen on EU 91/440 and seems to have done its best to circumvent it (and the open access which naturally follows it) by doing everything it can to frustrate it and I'm glad to hear that the EU might at last be trying to sort out the French and their intransigence. From what I see and know of them I don't think I would trust a single operating company in Britain today to be even halfway capable of properly and equitably managing infrastructure - they are far too interested, in almost every case, in short-term 'quickibuck' management methods to be trusted with open access agreements or ownership of a train graph and I think Southernman46 has hit a number of nails firmly on the head. Alas what was in some respects a good model for separating infrastructure accounting and operator accounting as required by EU 91/440 was squandered by the way in which the financial model of Railtrack was allowed to go into private ownership without modification and then be ripped off by a bunch of get-rich-quick merchants who saw maintenance & investment funding as 'profit' and duly lined their pockets with it. Part of the massive spending programme of today on the part of Network Rail is but one of the consequences of that period of mismanagement and disinterest in even the short term future of the industry. Gross mismanagement of the impact of engineering work on operators on the part of Railtrack has created other regrettable consequences which now feed directly into the industry's costs and were - like so many other things - misunderstood (if they were even recognised by) - McNulty. Sorry to rant but having seen a lot of it from close quarters (occasionally all too close when dealing with certain 'Trackies out to make their name) I regret that a great opportunity was lost or, more correctly, sold. The privytisation 'model' was hardly free of flaws and a lot of it was heavily politically driven solely for so-called 'ideological' reasons by politicos who had a very limited understanding of what they were doing. But it has happened, we can't recreate corporate BR however much we might wish for it but what should be done is to make much better use of the structure which has resulted and with the industry speaking for itself with a unified voice although I doubt it will ever happen. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Southernman46 Posted March 13, 2012 Share Posted March 13, 2012 The Network Rail Wessex route were briefed today on the "Alliance" and surprise, surprise, of the 8 senior posts within Wessex, 6 are SWT people, of the remaining two, one is just the Commerical Director (a female, who was instrumental in planning the whole thing anyway !). At least the Infrastructure Director has a track engineering background, albeit just a couple of years away from retirement. I'm not so blinkered as to realise that these are competent people but they work for a TOC whose business is as a profit-making company running trains..............Profits were Railtrack's downfall............. HOW can this possibly be a positive step in running the infrastructure ?? Here we go again............................................ Draw your own conclusions............ I'm just glad I'm not there anymore............ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
EddieB Posted March 14, 2012 Share Posted March 14, 2012 But not two separate companies! The government, typically, 'gold plated' the EU directive. As far as I can work out, no other European railway has gone as far as we have. Sweden adopted a similar approach - even before we did - with the infrastructure under Banverket and consistently moves towards open access for train operation. Here in the UK, the Isle of Wight SWT/Stagecoach Island Line has retained integration of permanent way and train operation. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Phil Posted March 14, 2012 Share Posted March 14, 2012 Beancounters meddling with stuff they know little about. Great if you want to travel on the route that the operator / track owner runs. However, if you want to take a train of aviation spirit down to Heathrow everyday over this piece of "satinrail", how is it impartially arranged ? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Gold The Stationmaster Posted March 14, 2012 RMweb Gold Share Posted March 14, 2012 Great if you want to travel on the route that the operator / track owner runs. However, if you want to take a train of aviation spirit down to Heathrow everyday over this piece of "satinrail", how is it impartially arranged ? I don't know anything about the SWT thing but in the past whenever these 'alliance' things were talked about they seemed to be more about prioritising maintenance and infrastructure./station improvements than anything else. They certainly can't modify someone else's Access Contract and, unless there have been some very drastic changes to the timetable process since my time, they can't go round blocking capacity for the use of other operators or 'interfere' in the timetable process (which in any case does not take place at that level). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Southernman46 Posted March 15, 2012 Share Posted March 15, 2012 Exactly - it's not about blocking other operators services - it's the effect on maintenance & renewals and their prioritisation - expect a considerable reduction in junction S&C renewals due to their dual route blocking nature for example give the future SWT influence at high level within Wessex........ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Gold Oldddudders Posted March 15, 2012 RMweb Gold Share Posted March 15, 2012 Exactly - it's not about blocking other operators services - it's the effect on maintenance & renewals and their prioritisation - expect a considerable reduction in junction S&C renewals due to their dual route blocking nature for example give the future SWT influence at high level within Wessex........ But doesn't reduced renewals of junction S&C mean a potentially higher number of broken crossings etc., leading to loss of facilities while a new crossing is cast - they're always "specials" these days, no doubt - and poor performance all round? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Southernman46 Posted March 15, 2012 Share Posted March 15, 2012 Oh yes - especially with the way the latest NR60 cast xings are performing - another had to be replaced at Weybridge last week after just 3 years in track............ The Reading line S&C at Basingstoke is due for complete replacement (it dates from the late 50's with bits of new steelwork on top) at Easter 2013 - watch it get "reviewed" Anyway I'm starting to just moan now - as I said above - not my problem anymore - Best of Luck Wessex ! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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