Network Rail in line to take control of trains in major overhaul

Class 170101 · 18 Jun 2019

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/network-rail-trains-control-performance-timetable-9g8vxqv9h

Network Rail could be given new powers over trains in the biggest overhaul of the railways for 25 years.

The Times has learnt that a government review is considering handing greater control to Network Rail, which currently operates the tracks, in an attempt to improve performance.

The government-owned infrastructure group would get the power to specify and award contracts to private train operators to run passenger services, bringing the operation of the tracks and trains closer together.

Rail industry sources said that the initiative was being closely considered by Keith Williams, the former chief executive of British Airways, who is leading the review...

Unfortunately the article is mostly behind a paywall but from what I am able to see of it the idea is something that could come out of the Williams Review.

I am not convinced that NR should be specifying services as there will be a contest between passenger services and track access for maintenance and I cannot see NR being a fair arbiter in this.

RailUK Forums

Bletchleyite · 19 Jun 2019

If it’s going to do that, it might as well operate them too.

AlastairFraser · 19 Jun 2019

Bletchleyite said:
If it’s going to do that, it might as well operate them too.

True,but the Tories won't let that happen,will they? They are already pissed off about having to renationalise LNER.

Mag_seven · 19 Jun 2019

AlastairFraser said:
One train company insider said: “Network Rail has overspent and cocked up yet it could be getting the golden goose. It’s a reward for failure.”

"The pot calling the kettle black" is the phrase that immediately springs to mind.

Shaw S Hunter · 19 Jun 2019

It will be interesting to see the DfT's reaction to this as it is basically saying that the DfT is the worst part of the problem and should be taken out of the loop as far as franchise/service specification goes. Perhaps the IEP financing debacle has hit home to Williams. However if it goes ahead you can bet that the top job at Network Rail will become a political appointment.

krus_aragon · 19 Jun 2019

From the title (and article summary), I thought that this was indicating that NR would start owning the trains! Not so...

Carlisle · 19 Jun 2019

Shaw S Hunter said:
It will be interesting to see the DfT's reaction to this as it is basically saying that the DfT is the worst part of the problem and should be taken out of the loop as far as franchise/service specification goes. .

So this won’t address any of the major longstanding criticisms & problems associated with the franchise system (highlighted recently by Mr Williams himself ) , it merely transfers award & supervision of it from DFT to NR, with perhaps a few tweaks along the way

philthetube · 19 Jun 2019

Class 170101 said:
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/network-rail-trains-control-performance-timetable-9g8vxqv9h

I am not convinced that NR should be specifying services as there will be a contest between passenger services and track access for maintenance and I cannot see NR being a fair arbiter in this.

The more passenger services which run the better the revenue stream would be for network rail, so maybe the opposite would be true.

Fawkes Cat · 19 Jun 2019

A lot depends on whether NR would be expected to make a profit, or just operate within its funding.

If profit-making, this might lead to a culture of doing what is most profitable within a fairly short timescale. But this might prioritise money over safety.

If working within budget, this might lead to prioritising 'traditional' NR activities over the new issue of running trains.

Neither seems entirely appealing. But I can see the attraction for government of passing the micro-management of the railway onto an arm's length (or even private) body, which presumably would be funded by one cheque each year 'to run the railway' rather than DfT having to make twenty or so franchise payments each year and constantly run franchise competitions.

LNW-GW Joint · 19 Jun 2019

Presumably they are talking about moving the franchising function from DfT into the "Systems Operator" part of Network Rail.
That doesn't solve the political imperative to specify journey times and frequencies, and to allocate development funds to improvements.
Network Rail currently does what it is told by government every 5 years (HLOS/SoFA).
It can of course identify what capacity exists for new/altered services, but it is not set up to allocate that capacity on a commercial or political basis.
That was the job of OPRAF/SRA and now the DfT and ORR.
It doesn't solve the wider devolution need either (devolution to an NR Region is not the same as devolution to TfN or similar political bodies).

Megafuss · 19 Jun 2019

DaFT can't even be bothered to update the franchise schedule, last updated July 2017!

I am not sure Network Rail are the solution. Personally, I feel the SRA should never have been scrapped.

Bantamzen · 19 Jun 2019

This is similar to an idea I have mooted previously, where a central body effectively puts contracts out for all routes with private companies bidding for them. Obviously it couldn't be on a route by route basis, purely from a logistical point operators would need depots / bases around clusters of their operations. But split into something similar to the current franchise layouts, sets of routes could be offered, with the central body responsible for specifying timings, fares etc, and the contractor responsible for running these to the specified contracts.

Whether or not NR are the best is up for debate however.

DarloRich · 19 Jun 2019

AlastairFraser said:
The powers over franchises would be devolved to Network Rail’s five regions to promote greater local control

that is the key line in the article.

krus_aragon said:
From the title (and article summary), I thought that this was indicating that NR would start owning the trains! Not so...

NR already own lots of trains.

LNW-GW Joint said:
Presumably they are talking about moving the franchising function from DfT into the "Systems Operator" part of Network Rail.

The quoted post above shows the suggested destination.

Randomer · 19 Jun 2019

So we are moving towards a 1950's BR regional management structure but with actual train operation contracted out? (tongue firmly in cheek)

krus_aragon · 19 Jun 2019

DarloRich said:
NR already own lots of trains.

Mostly for maintenance and non-revenue work, I believe. They'd have no need to "take control" of trains that they already own, of course.

F Great Eastern · 19 Jun 2019

Anything that removes power from the incompetent DFT has to be good.

However my biggest fear is that the people in the DFT will just end up moving to Network Rail and it'll be the same clueless people doing similar jobs in a organisation with a different name rather than real change.

3141 · 19 Jun 2019

IF what the Times article is saying really is what Williams is going to propose, it strikes me as a compromise way of bringing a greater degree of centralisation to the rail industry while preserving privatised passenger (and freight) operations. At least NR, unlike the DfT, is run by railwaymen (or persons). Perhaps the hope is that with Andrew Haines at the helm of NR it would be more effective and efficient in a new enlarged role.

Although Williams has said that nothing is ruled out, we can guess that Grayling wouldn't support a recommendation to renationalise. He'll be hoping for something that addresses some of the widespread concerns about the current set-up, that offers a hope of a less tightly-specified passenger system in the future, and that maintains private operations. To achieve that he'd be quite prepared to support a substantial downgrading of the DfT's role. There have been reports that he has on occasion pushed for his own ideas against the advice of senior officials, so there may not be much love lost between him and them.

Mag_seven · 19 Jun 2019

Megafuss said:
I feel the SRA should never have been scrapped.

I feel BR should never have been scrapped.

F Great Eastern · 19 Jun 2019

Mag_seven said:
I feel BR should never have been scrapped.

As someone who used trains under BR, I can tell you that it was not as perfect as some wide eyes people will tell you.

Mag_seven · 19 Jun 2019

F Great Eastern said:
As someone who used trains under BR, I can tell you that it was not as perfect as some wide eyes people will tell you.

No one is saying it was perfect but it was a lot better than the shambles we have today.

DynamicSpirit · 19 Jun 2019

Mag_seven said:
No one is saying it was perfect but it was a lot better than the shambles we have today.

Was it?

I'm not old enough to have that good a memory of BR, but ... rose tinted specs and all that are a common problem. I don't believe there are any statistics available about how reliable trains were in BR days, so it's impossible to know for certain. One thing that stands out though is that BR didn't run nearly as frequent a service on most lines as is being run today, which would imply that BR would have had a much easier job keeping trains running to time.

At any rate, the railway is so different today from what it was in the 1970s and 80s that any fair comparison is probably impossible.

option · 19 Jun 2019

Class 170101 said:
I am not convinced that NR should be specifying services as there will be a contest between passenger services and track access for maintenance and I cannot see NR being a fair arbiter in this.

philthetube said:
The more passenger services which run the better the revenue stream would be for network rail, so maybe the opposite would be true.

Isn't there a risk with that, in that additional services on an already profitable section of track would be pure profit for NR, whereas additional services on a loss making section would not be. (& they might even need to spend money to allow the new service to operate)

Bletchleyite · 19 Jun 2019

F Great Eastern said:
As someone who used trains under BR, I can tell you that it was not as perfect as some wide eyes people will tell you.

It was pretty rubbish in many ways, but it also had a fraction (in real terms) of the subsidy of today. If we paid today's subsidy to BR I don't doubt we'd have something much more like, say, SBB, or maybe DB.

F Great Eastern · 19 Jun 2019

Bletchleyite said:
It was pretty rubbish in many ways, but it also had a fraction (in real terms) of the subsidy of today. If we paid today's subsidy to BR I don't doubt we'd have something much more like, say, SBB, or maybe DB.

But it also ran a fraction of the services and carried a far smaller number of passengers.

Price per passenger km is actually down quite a bit now, and that is without even taking into account inflation which makes todays figures look more expensive than they are in real terms.

3141 · 19 Jun 2019

DynamicSpirit said:
Was it?

I'm not old enough to have that good a memory of BR, but ... rose tinted specs and all that are a common problem. I don't believe there are any statistics available about how reliable trains were in BR days, so it's impossible to know for certain. One thing that stands out though is that BR didn't run nearly as frequent a service on most lines as is being run today, which would imply that BR would have had a much easier job keeping trains running to time.

At any rate, the railway is so different today from what it was in the 1970s and 80s that any fair comparison is probably impossible.

I am old enough (even old enough to have been there before BR), and you're absolutely right, especially about frequencies being much higher now than in the past so that many performance comparisons are simply not possible. Critics in the 70s and 80s weighed into BR in much the same way as they do about TOCs (especially) and NR today. Uninformed and with the assumption that they know exactly how things should be done. Another feature of the BR era was national rail strikes, and I don't think Mr. Cash would pass up the opportunity to organise a few of them if railways were renationalised.

Class 170101 · 24 Jun 2019

option said:
Isn't there a risk with that, in that additional services on an already profitable section of track would be pure profit for NR, whereas additional services on a loss making section would not be. (& they might even need to spend money to allow the new service to operate)

Depends if the loss gets smaller or bigger?

modernrail · 24 Jun 2019

F Great Eastern said:
But it also ran a fraction of the services and carried a far smaller number of passengers.

Price per passenger km is actually down quite a bit now, and that is without even taking into account inflation which makes todays figures look more expensive than they are in real terms.

Any chance of a source on this? It is something I find very interesting in the whole debate, particularly with our high fares. Are some of our fares too high (all peak north-south, south-east peak) because:

- we let some people travel too cheap (advance fares)
- we don't subsidise as much as other countries
- it costs more to run a train and the associated per passenger km in the UK than eksewhere
etc
or a combination of factors with no clear winner.

SamYeager · 25 Jun 2019

@modernrail I don't have a specific source but in the various threads there's often been mention that a key BR method of managing demand was to hike the fares. I don't believe there was too much discounting of fares but my memory's a bit hazy on that subject.

It's been government policy for many years, including I believe the last Labour ones, to reduce the amount the government pays for the railways. The UK is somewhat notorious for gold-plating safety regulations so current H&S is far more onerous and expensive than BR faced. How much all this accounts for the difference in costs between now and BR days is another matter of course.

swissrailpassion · 25 Jun 2019

Intercity, Gatwick Express and Network Southeast ran at a profit in the days of Bob Reid No 1.
That equates to
ECML WCML GWML, SWR, SE, GN and Thameslink, Midland Mainline, Southern and Anglian mainlines.
The decision to abandon sectors and go with franchising was an expensive mistake.

Socanxdis · 25 Jun 2019

One organisation should be responsible for all aspects of the railway (Trains, Stations, Track Maintenance, Signalling etc). That way there is no one else to blame, which is what we see back and forth between TOCs and NR. I am not sure NR is competent enough to take on more responsibility though. Maybe TOCs should be give the responsibility of track and signal maintenance.

Network Rail in line to take control of trains in major overhaul

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