Scottish Independence and its impact on the railways

[Colin_McLeod]

The problem lies more with disentangling the two countries' systems.

 

When Ireland was partitioned, all railways entirely in NI became part of the "Ulster Transport Authority"  All railways entirely in Eire became part of CIE.  The railways which crossed the border continued an independent existence for a few years, then were jointly controlled by both governments, who eventually split the companies geographically with all rolling stock split equally between the two state organisations.

[The Stationmaster]

There is a great deal of wailing and gnashing of teeth  here, but there are cross-border trains all over Europe (including non-EU countries) which don't seem to cause all that much trouble.

 

Ed

Exactly so Ed - as I have (I'd hoped) already explained in a couple of earlier posts.

 

As for a comment elsewhere about 'disentangling the two countries' systems the simple answer is that there is little or no 'disentangling' to do - it is simply a question of deciding where the border is (the railway border could well be slightly different from a national border) and reorganising to suit.  And in railway terms the 'reorganising which would be involved is simple and minor in comparison with some of the things we went through and did in the BR era or when it changed over to the privatised structures, which have also subsequently been reorganised several times.  There are plenty of us retired railway folk available on both sides of the border who could sort out the nuts & bolts of that sort of reorganisation in a month or so, some of us used to do such things on an annual basis.

 

As I have already said the important thing is the decision about the 'high level' part of any franchises which operate across the border but again the practicalities and options are easy to sort and structure - the difficult bit, if any, might be the politicos (on either or both sides).  Access to and role of Govt agencies would also need to be sorted - already discussed, potential problems but easily solved with a will to do so and again relatively easy to sort at the practical level.

[Ravenser]

When Ireland was partitioned, all railways entirely in NI became part of the "Ulster Transport Authority"  All railways entirely in Eire became part of CIE.  The railways which crossed the border continued an independent existence for a few years, then were jointly controlled by both governments, who eventually split the companies geographically with all rolling stock split equally between the two state organisations.

 

The GNRI was independent for something like 35 years I think? And the CDR until closure in 1959? Since both were commercial organisations independent of either government that sidestepped some of the potential issues here - the GNRI could be seen as to some degree a neutral organisation both north and south of the border and was free to pursue its own policy in its own commercial interest to a certain extent

 

Also after Irish independence, it would have been links between London and Dublin - ie the Holyhead and Fishguard routes - which would have been downgraded:  Irish Nationalists were (and are) keen on links between North and South and De Vallera specifically included a claim to the whole island in his Constitution, so I presume there would have been political pressure in favour of continued links between north and south, rather than towards cutting them (whatever the day to day practical frictions).

 

For me the most bizarre aspect of the current SNP proposals for an independant Scotland is that they envisage the continued use of existing UK institutions by an independant Scotland across a whole range of functions - and where any clarification has been given , it seems that what is envisaged is that Scotland has some kind of "joint ownership" of all the institutions of the UK, and therefore after independance it would have joint control of such institutions and  Scotland could continue to use any of them it wished in the way it wished to carry out Scottish Govt policy.

 

The Stationmaster was clearly envisaging that the SNP would be contracting HMRI , RAIB and perhaps ORR to carry out work in Scotland on a commercial basis - I have a suspicion that the Scottish White Paper is in fact assuming that HMRI and RAIB would be partly owned and partly controlled by an independant Scotland . Normally any new state seceeding automatically sets up its own national institutions across the board (including in the private sector - eg I don't think British trade unions function in the Irish Republic). The idea that a new state would continue own a portion  of the institutions of the country it had just left , and would use those institutions for its own self-government is, I think, quite novel

 

The biggest difficulty here is seperating out Anglo Scottish services on ECML and WCML from the other services on those routes. Given the logic that has been applied to the currency, the Bank of England and the BBC , I can see a Scottish claim to joint control of the whole of both franchises being made - and that would mean joint Scottish control of English domestic rail services between London and all but two of England's major cities (Sheffield and Bristol being the exception) . That will certainly not be acceptable to any English government at Westminster, and  the underlying principle has already been explicitly rejected by the current British Government in respect of the pound, the Bank of England and the BBC   . At which point it could all get rather messy and political and emotional

 

London-Glasgow has been the walking wounded of the InterCity routes for a generation since cancellation of APT left it without a commercial solution to the competition from air . On the other hand rail has kept a strong position in the London Edinburgh market - and those trains also serve Newcastle and potentially Glasgow . Hence a significant reduction in London-Edinburgh/Glasgow business travel might mean the end of Euston/Glasgow as a through route and concentration of London/Scotland on the ECML . Only a few years ago the service pattern north of Crewe was 2 hrly Euston/Glasgow , 2hrly Bhm/Glasgow, which is close to the edge of credibility in terms of frequency for an InterCity route. So the concept of refocussing the northern end of the WCML on a regional service from Glasgow to English regional centres has been in the air for a while. If serious issues involving franchise control arose, a small self-contained Glasgow-Liverpool/Manchester franchise would offer an attractive solution from an English point of view 

 

However seperating out the London/Newcastle and London/Edinburgh services would be very difficult . I can't see any Scottish government objecting to Edinburgh trains calling at Newcastle, whatever difficulties they might create about Anglo Scottish trains being used to meet purely English travel needs, and with a half hourly frequency to Newcastle , but hourly beyond, there are plenty of Newcastle trains which could cover intermediate stations south to Doncaster. The only other English regional cities served by the ECML franchise are Leeds/Bradford , so a Scottish claim to joint control of the complete ECML franchise would be rather easier to manage - especially as there are two other , English domestic, operators Grand Central and Hull Trains who could plug any service holes that opened up through political difficulties     

[edcayton]

What happened with the railways of the former USSR and Yugoslavia when they broke up?

 

Ed

[TomJ]

Given what happend to Yugoslavia on its break up I suspect rail links between Sarajevo and Belgrade weren't the number one priority

[edcayton]

Given what happend to Yugoslavia on its break up I suspect rail links between Sarajevo and Belgrade weren't the number one priority

 

No, of course not. I meant what happens now?

 

Ed

[ZiderHead]

As a practical consideration , if Scotland becomes independant there is likely to be a lot less passenger travel - especially business travel - between London and Edinburgh /Glasgow .

 

I don't see why this would be the case in the short/medium term unless extreme restrictions on trade were to be introduced immediately after independence, which is the last thing anyone should want. Scottish companies will still trade in the UK and vice versa.

 

In the longer term as differences in fiscal and monetary policy either side of the border manifest themselves in price and wage differentials, I would expect to see an increase in cross-border traffic. The only mechanism I can see for a significant decrease in traffic is if one economy is so disastrously mismanaged that there is no business there worth travelling for.

[Catkins]

Mention has been made of where the English railways would end, and the Scottish railways would begin, and the obvious answer is to have the railway border at the signalling section boundaries, no physical work required - job done.

 

I don't think that the Scottish (NP) government actually mean joint ownership of the current UK organisations like HMRI, RAIB and BTP. I imagine that if separation does occur, then the Scottish government will "purchase" a percentage of the relevant bodies to cover the Scottish territory, and there would be both rUK and Scottish organisations.*

 

As for the actual services, unless the WCML north of Carlisle is physically truncated, I don't see why the Glasgow services will be changed, however I do see the ending of the Highland Chieftain and Northern Lights services purely because they duplicate services from Edinburgh, and I would imagine that Scotrail will want the custom - such that it is.

Where I do see a change is in the tourist rail cruises that are offered, as a big part of UK trade is tourism, I would think that the Scots will be pushing the concept of a rail cruise as a package, possibly tying in with the Sleeper.

 

 

* much the same as the RSPCA/ScottishSPCA

[The Stationmaster]

 

However seperating out the London/Newcastle and London/Edinburgh services would be very difficult . I can't see any Scottish government objecting to Edinburgh trains calling at Newcastle, whatever difficulties they might create about Anglo Scottish trains being used to meet purely English travel needs, and with a half hourly frequency to Newcastle , but hourly beyond, there are plenty of Newcastle trains which could cover intermediate stations south to Doncaster. The only other English regional cities served by the ECML franchise are Leeds/Bradford , so a Scottish claim to joint control of the complete ECML franchise would be rather easier to manage - especially as there are two other , English domestic, operators Grand Central and Hull Trains who could plug any service holes that opened up through political difficulties     

It is a relatively simple matter to separate the service groups within any of the franchises so there need be no Scottish influence over, say, GNER services to Leeds.  There might well be some potential difficulties regarding set rotation and mileage balancing but again that is extremely simple to sort using standard UIC procedures which have been in place for many years - all that is needed is willingness on the part of both parties to sort it.

 

It was done with the Yugoslav break-up and various others in Eastern Europe where the number of organisations represented at international meetings increased almost in line with the emergence of 'new' countries - for example at one organised group dinner I found myself sitting next to one of the team from Belorussia (and they were very different from those from Russia).

 

As far as access to such organisations as HMRI I merely worked on the basis of what the SNP has said - they have a number of options for structuring regulators etc but in the immediate case they see Scotland drawing on existing regulatory agencies and obviously, whether they like it or not, they will have to bear the cost of whatever work they have done.

[pete_mcfarlane]

It is a relatively simple matter to separate the service groups within any of the franchises so there need be no Scottish influence over, say, GNER services to Leeds.  

I'd imagine that anything to do with the ECML and WCML would only need to work in the medium term, as there will be a big shakeup of London-Scotland services after HS2 is built regardless of whether Scotland gets independence.

 

In the short term, there would probably be some interesting fights over the limited number of ECML paths and trains. These would have a nice new International political dimension, as Mr Salmond won't be happy at losing more Scottish services to provide extra seats for commuters from Grantham and Peterborough.

[jjb1970]

The mechanics of the break up, revenue sharing and operations should be pretty straightforward and relatively non controversial. As many have said there are plenty of precedents. I also believe both sides will want a working cross border link regardless of politics, I don't see that as being an issue. What is much harder to predict and what will have a longer term impact will be changes to travel patterns (increasing shift to leisure travel and also a turn inwards on both sides) along with revised investment priorities for both governments. In this regard the key will be how England prioritises the northern ends of the WCML and ECML. I do not believe England will set out to downgrade these routes or to starve them of investment, but it is just a recognition of fact that if you looked at a purely English and Welsh railway then these routes would look a lot less important than they are today.

[Dava]

Why should Anglo-Scottish rail travel reduce after any independence agreement? The Enterprise Dublin-Belfast service runs 8 trains each way daily, showing consistent ridership for a 2 hr 10 min journey, and has run for 40+ years. There is much more Scots connection with England than some comments suggest, with rail travel being popular in Scotland.

 

Dava

[jjb1970]

In Ireland the two principal cities of the island are connected by a service taking just over two hours. 8 well loaded trains a day is probably not a bad estimate of where WCML services North of Preston could end up and by the standards of much of the NR system (on both sides of the Anglo-Scottish border) is not a frequent service. Most of the traffic will probably become low fare leisure traffic and given that there is about 200 miles North of Preston why would the line be a high investment priority when other lines can generate as much traffic in a couple of hours? I think London - Glasgow will decline but as others have said Manchester/Liverpool - Scotland services ma offset this decline and more however even for Manchester and Liverpool if there is a pot of money for investment there will be other priorities higher up the list I think. The ECML will fare better as the NE of England is much more populous and with a lot more industry than Cumbria and the Edingburgh - England link will be considered more important. They can also offer better timings making it more competitive with air travel.

[Colin_McLeod]

Why should Anglo-Scottish rail travel reduce after any independence agreement? The Enterprise Dublin-Belfast service runs 8 trains each way daily, showing consistent ridership for a 2 hr 10 min journey, and has run for 40+ years. There is much more Scots connection with England than some comments suggest, with rail travel being popular in Scotland.

 

Dava

 

Make that "60+ years" 

 

The GNR(I) introduced the service as the "Enterprise Express" on 11 August 1947

 

 

[ZiderHead]

... changes to travel patterns (increasing shift to leisure travel and also a turn inwards on both sides) ...

 

I just dont see this, its not like Tesco will suddenly shut all their Scottish stores and Scottish and Newcastle will stop selling beer in the UK. Very few businesses will stop cross border trade because of currency and exchange rate issues, a Euro-pegged Scottish Pound will be no more difficult to deal with than the Euro for UK businesses.

[Ron Ron Ron]

There's a possibility that business travel would increase following separation, as new institutions and newly created activities north of the border will create more interaction with the remaining UK.

 

A sobering fact though, this may mean very little to rail in the big scheme of things, when cross-border travel accounts for only 0.45% of all UK rail travel journeys.

 

 

 

.

[jjb1970]

That is freight, and yes I agree neither business nor passenger service will go away. The question is not so much that as the relative importance of such traffic once the railway is no longer considered as part of the adhesive holding the country together and becomes viewed purely in operational/financial terms (apologies if that breaches the political prohibition but it is meaningless to ask this question without considering that there is a non rail dimension to this). I used to live in Carlisle and commute via the M6/M74 and rely on the WCML, Neither is especially busy compared to the sort of road and rail utilisation further South or further North. The M74 at is Southern end is probably the best motorway in the country, 6 lanes and moderate traffic. The rail line is similar, it is hardly the busiest line in the country. I am not saying that the line will die or shut down and clearly both countries have a vested interest in maintaining links. What I am saying is that the money will be directed to those parts of the network with most demand and economic benefit and that without the political imperative of holding two countries together as a single entity then there will be a lot less support for pointing money in that direction.

 

I just dont see this, its not like Tesco will suddenly shut all their Scottish stores and Scottish and Newcastle will stop selling beer in the UK. Very few businesses will stop cross border trade because of currency and exchange rate issues, a Euro-pegged Scottish Pound will be no more difficult to deal with than the Euro for UK businesses.