Is everyone tired of franchising?

[cjmillsnun]

Not only did I experience it a lot, my father worked on it all his life. I particularly remember dreadful crowding (it was worse on those old train carriages with no vestibule) and strikes every winter. When I read how wonderful it was, I wonder if people lived in an alternate universe to the one I did.

Strikes every winter. When? As a regular user of BR I only occasionally came across striking. Indeed it was probably at similar levels to today.
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---

No, but neither is it a problem confined to privatisation - which is my point. I've certainly not experienced crowding as bad on any modern train, even though I agree that many of them are badly overcrowded.

Try moving in an HST between RDG and PAD or in any train between WOK and WAT in the peak.

 

[yorksrob]

I think you either have a selective memory or were young at the time of privatisation.



No, but neither is it a problem confined to privatisation - which is my point. I've certainly not experienced crowding as bad on any modern train, even though I agree that many of them are badly overcrowded.

Young, but not that young. At the grand old age of 38, I'm old enough to remember the national strikes in the 90's, but they were rare enough to be big news.

I've also been stood up arm pit to arm pit on a rush hour EPB in the early 90's as well as on pacers recently which have been so crush loaded the driver has had difficulty getting on, and there isn't a great deal between them. Certainly the luggage racks on the EPB provided a lot more to hold on to.

 

[tbtc]

There's a thread on here somewhere showing that, in actual fact, a Class 156 *was* commandeered and sent south to operate in place of a failed 222.

So this can be done, and is done.

Similarly, Pacers have got to Reading substituting for HSTs before.

It probably helps that it's the same TOC.

True, and they have done it the other way round too by putting "Intercity" trains on "Provincial" services (HSTs to Skegness in the summer, Meridians to Liverpool for the Grand National, HSTs to Lincoln Market).

Maybe the answer is just to hand everything over to Stagecoach? Maybe that explains the VTEC win?

The only reason given at the time for there being a bus rather than a train was that the spare trains belong to someone else, which is my point

It depends on what kind of “BR” you are talking about.

If you are talking about the sectorised version that I knew in the 1980s and 1990s then you’d find that the Pacer/ Sprinter belonged to Provincial/ Regional Railways North East, so the staff/ fuel (etc) would come out of their budget – InterCity (who operated the Sheffield – London service) could pay for the hire of the Sprinter/ Pacer (and staff)…

…but that’s not really any different to today’s world where Stagecoach (who operate the Sheffield – London service) can pay for the hire of the Sprinter/ Pacer (and staff) from Arriva (who run the local trains).

There was certainly no guarantee that Intercity would pay Regional Railways/Provincial to borrow a Pacer/ Sprinter in such circumstances back in the 1980s/ 1990s – just as there’s no guarantee that Stagecoach *wouldn’t* try to solve the problem on the MML today (as Neil says, they have used a 156 in the past to deal with InterCity shortages).

If you are talking about the enthusiast ideal of BR (the only Government interference is when they hand the Fat Controller a cheque for several billion pounds every few years – Fat Controller employs “proper Railwaymen” and can run a fully integrated railway without any political pressures or accountants or internal divisions/silos) then fair enough, but that’s never going to happen in the twenty first century.

I remain to be convinced in the public/private debate, but look at the modern NHS/ schools/ prisons etc. The world of “just borrow a different unit for the morning with some spare staff” wouldn’t exist today, just as a Sheffield hospital couldn’t simply borrow a GP from a local GP surgery, or a secondary school couldn’t simply borrow a teacher from a primary school (all things are possible, but need to be accounted for, need to ensure that people are sufficiently trained, need to be audited etc).

Even the wonderful company that I work for (which presents one face to the public) is actually several competing internal divisions where everything has cost centres and budgets.

Nationalise the whole lot, but you’ll still have internal divisions. You’ll also have the kind of austerity that has hit other bits of the economy, which rail has thankfully being exempt from. Grass isn’t always greener.

(1) It's an occasional Northern route so 158s at least can do it and presumably drivers sign the route

Some Northern drivers will sign it, but chances of them being spare at half an hour's notice on a Sunday morning?

(4) Same thing as the "spare" bus and driver were supposed to be doing, I guess.

The coach, in those circumstances, was essentially a taxi – offer enough money to the coach company and they’ll rustle up a driver at short notice and be able to drive pretty much anywhere.

• They won’t have to worry about whether he/she has the requisite “route knowledge”
• They won’t have to worry about whether that type of vehicle is cleared in the Sectional Appendix south of Chesterfield
• They won’t have to worry about pathing it down the motorway (whether it’ll get overtaken by other vehicles)
• They won’t have to worry about whether there’s a slot for it to return northbound up the M1

…rail is great but it’s not flexible at dealing with short notice disruptions.

Main beneficiaries of franchising are probably vinyl livery makers!

Stock needs repainting every few years regardless.

In later years, BR tinkered with their livery on a regular basis (e.g. is your idea of "InterCity" the Mainline one or the Swallow one or the Executive one or the APT one?), but even in the straightforward blue/grey days, trains and coaches needed repainting.

Most TOCs generally wait until a unit is getting overhauled (and out of service anyway) before repainting it. The TOCs who do rush to repaint everything (e.g. VTEC) are the ones who feel that it's good value advertising.

(regardless, if these private companies want to spend shareholder money on painting trains, what's the problem?)

Indeed one of the great mysteries is how things are SO much more expensive to do now when compared with 30/40/50 years ago. Yes, H&S has had an effect, and things are done to a more gold plated standard now, but it's still shocking.

Back in the 60s and early 70s, never mind electrification schemes like the WCML, the heart of the Motorway system was built, the M1, M3, M4, M5, M6 etc

Leaving aside political and environmental issues, can you imagine the M6 being built now, all those elevated sections through Birmingham would be unaffordable.

True.

In hindsight, I think we built the motorways at the perfect time, when our technical abilities were good enough to do it to a decent enough standard but before construction costs and land costs escalated.

Everything costs a fortune nowadays - e.g. £10m/ mile for the single/double track Borders line - but the same is true of all construction projects (look how long and costly putting an extra lane on motorways is, as a "Smart Motorway").

A nationalised railway would have seen the same increases in construction costs, health and safety, land prices, pension costs, fuel prices.

I will start by saying I am reasonably lefty politically so would not have any ideological issues with full renationalisation, but I'm not so lefty that I believe we should renationalise on ideological grounds alone. To me two things stick out in the comparison of franchise or nationalise debate.

Firstly the debate has to recognise that the situation the railway as a whole finds itself in as of 2016 is very different to 20 years ago and as such direct comparison is going to be very difficult and nuanced. The doubling of passenger numbers alone makes it a whole different kettle of fish.

Secondly the main issue I have with franchising is ROSCOS. Ostensibly we are told that franchising is good because it introduces competition. Even accepting this as true, competition simply is meaningless in the current framework of ROSCOS. The way that trains are specialised and each class being *far* more suited to run certain services combined with there not being an adundance of spare stock - because if there was it would be in use - means that competiton in stock terms is not feasibile or meaningful once stock has been purchased. In no serious world are the Pendelinos competing with mk4 and loco for use on the WCMl. Pacers and 15x are not competing with hst for Paddington to Bristol services. This means that ROSCOS are simply inefficient - cash cows for owners - but not helping the railway become the effecient, cheap(ish?) service that franchising is supposed to bring.
Having said all of that I'm not sure if the framework of franchisees not owning the trains works without wide nationalising of ROSCOS , at which point you might as well go the whole way and run the trains as well from Gment

Agreed on all points (the politics, the kettle of fish and the money grabbing ROSCOS)!

For me, the ROSCOS are a much bigger problem than franchises.

The only good news is that recent rolling stock orders seem to be breaking up the "big three" approach.

 

[RepTCTC]

But BR got a subsidy of around £100K a day for a national network - we now have a gap between income / expenditure and investment of around £4 Billion per annum and NR has debts of circa £30 Billion.

Discuss

Passenger numbers have gone through the roof, and successive governments know they'd take a noticeable tonking at the ballot box if they were to do something as radical as, you know, get commuters to pay anything like the cost of their rides to work.

Regardless of who runs the railways, they're going to leak money unless they're allowed to set fares relative to demand ... something which no government with designs on re-election will ever do.

 

[HH]

Strikes every winter. When? As a regular user of BR I only occasionally came across striking. Indeed it was probably at similar levels to today.

Typical of the time was the national strike over APT and the strikes during the 'winter of discontent'.

--- old post above --- --- new post below ---

Young, but not that young. At the grand old age of 38, I'm old enough to remember the national strikes in the 90's, but they were rare enough to be big news.

I've also been stood up arm pit to arm pit on a rush hour EPB in the early 90's as well as on pacers recently which have been so crush loaded the driver has had difficulty getting on, and there isn't a great deal between them. Certainly the luggage racks on the EPB provided a lot more to hold on to.

A lot younger than me. The early 90s were not typical of BR - privatisation was coming.

--- old post above --- --- new post below ---

Passenger numbers have gone through the roof, and successive governments know they'd take a noticeable tonking at the ballot box if they were to do something as radical as, you know, get commuters to pay anything like the cost of their rides to work.

It's time to put a stop to this nonsense, which has been pushed by the last few governments. The reason for promoting rail travel is not that it will make a direct financial profit, it contributes to the general economic wealth by, for instance:

1. Removing congestion from the roads
2. Enabling people to commute to work in a reasonable time at an affordable cost - without this London, for instance, would come to a grinding halt
3. Helping us meet CO2 targets

When the government looks at investment in the railways it looks at these "wider economic benefits", but then, when it looks as to how they should be paid, it starts talking about passengers paying the costs. It makes no sense, especially given that road users aren't charged on a 'by road' basis.

 

[Morgsie]

I did a Policy Analysis on Rail Franchising as part of my Politics degree in the wake of the 2012 DfT mess over the ICWC Franchise where I argued that the current system will be reformed slightly.

I have point about which model being chosen when the Railways were privatised over 20 years ago yet I cannot word it. You also have the UK gold-plating Directive 91/440 (the European legislation that said infrastructure and services should be separate)

The only issue I have is the micromanagement by the DfT and that it should back off a bit.

 

[Harpers Tate]

...offer enough money to the coach company and they’ll rustle up a driver at short notice and be able to drive pretty much anywhere.

• They won’t have to worry about whether he/she has the requisite “route knowledge”
• They won’t have to worry about whether that type of vehicle is cleared in the Sectional Appendix south of Chesterfield
• They won’t have to worry about pathing it down the motorway (whether it’ll get overtaken by other vehicles)
• They won’t have to worry about whether there’s a slot for it to return northbound up the M1

However, offering enough money to a RAIL company doesn't appear to be an option.
Route knowledge: Agreed, but such personnel undoubtedly exist in the particular case I was caught up in
Pathing: To the untrained and naked eye, although this subject is raised just about every time we discuss such issues with the Railway, I have to say I believe it to be overstated as a reason. Allow me to offer my simple (untrained) logic: The frequent occurrence of a late running service which ends up out of place in the sequence of things in every case means that there is both an unoccupied scheduled path AND an extra path. A late runner can happen at any time and they are hardly ever just stopped somewhere random and the passengers told to get off. Thus, such a path (as long as the line isn't already fraught with late runners) is there in reality if not in theory for the empty stock move.

…rail is great but it’s not flexible at dealing with short notice disruptions.

Yes, exactly - but that is not necessarily intrinsic to a rail system itself; it's at least in part (and, I suspect a great part) about the way it is run from the top down; no contingency.

 

[ChiefPlanner]

Regardless of who runs the railways, they're going to leak money unless they're allowed to set fares relative to demand ... something which no government with designs on re-election will ever do.


Very good point indeed - and explains the "tortuous" PSR / SLC and perfromance benchmarks in franchise agreements.

Yet back in the day - the Big 4 and BR up to 1996 were left alone to specify timetables and service levels - not all bad either - as (to give one example) - Saturday night services up most Welsh Valleys had very late services for the drinking and going out traffic. (which cannot really have been truly "commercial" - - but was seen as part of the service package.

Nowadays - what gets specified gets done (and is checked) - try changing even the simplest Timetable. Trust me - been there.

 

[HH]

Nowadays - what gets specified gets done (and is checked) - try changing even the simplest Timetable. Trust me - been there.

Worse what gets specified can be poor; for example former ECS moves that were changed by TOCs to operational services (even if largely carrying fresh air) get baked into the PSR, even when changes in depots/stock mean that they no longer make sense.

 

[sarahj]

Regardless of who runs the railways, they're going to leak money unless they're allowed to set fares relative to demand ... something which no government with designs on re-election will ever do.


Very good point indeed - and explains the "tortuous" PSR / SLC and perfromance benchmarks in franchise agreements.

Yet back in the day - the Big 4 and BR up to 1996 were left alone to specify timetables and service levels - not all bad either - as (to give one example) - Saturday night services up most Welsh Valleys had very late services for the drinking and going out traffic. (which cannot really have been truly "commercial" - - but was seen as part of the service package.

Nowadays - what gets specified gets done (and is checked) - try changing even the simplest Timetable. Trust me - been there.

Simple, just tell everyone your conductors are sick and the gov will let you cancel trains left right and centre, even if there is staff to work them.

 

[yorksrob]

A lot younger than me. The early 90s were not typical of BR - privatisation was coming.

On the contrary, the early 1990's (and late 1980's) were the natural culmination of the changes brought about through sectorisation, a process which started long before privatisation became policy. The rolling stock hiatus of the mid 1990's was a consequence of impending privatisation.

 

[jzw95]

Stock needs repainting every few years regardless.

Having observed a few franchise changes and the subsequent rebranding of trains, I wondered how much was routine repainting and how much was extra just to rebrand. The introduction of the 2007 Transport Scotland ScotRail brand as part of First's franchise extension provided the perfect opportunity to find out. It was stated that so as not to incur unnecessary costs, the new brand would only be applied as and when trains needed a repaint or were refurbished (presumably aside from a few trains done initially to show the new look). This was also a case where there wasn't a franchise change, so from First's perspective, there was no problem leaving the old brand on.

Well, the result is that almost ten years (and a franchise change!) later we still have significant numbers of trains in the old First ScotRail livery. We're clearly past the halfway mark, but it has been illuminating to see just how long trains go between repaints if they're not being rebranded. On a similar time-frame, and this may be my faulty memory, I think there were still a few trains in the National Express livery with East Coast before VTEC took over (I'm pretty sure all the GNER blue had been eradicated by then :cry.

So while most companies don't rebrand as quickly as Virgin did, they definitely accelerate their repainting regime. It certainly did not take First nine years to get rid of the National Express-era ScotRail livery -- it wasn't as quick as VTEC, but it was comprehensively eliminated in a few years.

I'm not saying this is good or bad, just commenting as a data point, because the Transport Scotland rebrand in the middle of a franchise provided a unique opportunity to gain insight. The First-era branded ScotRail trains are definitely looking shabby on the outside (never mind inside)!

 

[matt_world2004]

Another genie which got out of the bottle on privatisation was the periodic opening up to criticism of plans for each of the routes/franchises.
BR was used to working on its route plans in secrecy, and presented them pretty much as a fait accompli to users and government.
It was able to switch funds as it liked, protect its favoured projects and starve others, within its overall budget.
There was nothing like the current Control Period cycle for public consumption, or Route Utilisation Studies, or enhancement project milestones, or train service specifications or PPM measures.
The world and his dog now want to scrutinise every proposal in case their 0822 to London is affected.

"The Railway" is now much more accountable than it used to be.
The government (any flavour) is not going to let things go back to the lazy arms-length setup that used to apply.
BR was heading in the right direction (sectors, pricing by demand etc) but there had to be a revolution to bring it up to date.
A future state-controlled passenger railway would not look like BR, and I doubt there will be a single "owner".
For a start, devolution will mean a fragmented railway (Wales, Scotland and English regions).
The "fat controller" era will not come back, even in a publicly-owned setup.

I dont know, if TfL farts on a bus it has to put it out to consultation

 

[PHILIPE]

Regardless of views on privatisation, the Railway Industry was completely unsuitable to be broken even if others are.

 

[Class 170101]

In answer to the question some might not be tired of franchising however are the TOC owning groups tired of franchising?

I would say they are otherwise why only two bidders for SWT?

 

[Mikey C]

In answer to the question some might not be tired of franchising however are the TOC owning groups tired of franchising?

I would say they are otherwise why only two bidders for SWT?

If so few private companies are prepared to bid for franchises, if nothing else that suggests that the profits they are making aren't excessive...

 

[HH]

In answer to the question some might not be tired of franchising however are the TOC owning groups tired of franchising?

I would say they are otherwise why only two bidders for SWT?

This is a sensible question. I can think of two reasons:

1. There is a strong incumbent, who is very adept at muddying the waters around actual revenue growth in the run up to the next franchise; and

2. It's a very large TOC with lots of risk and the DfT have pushed more risk onto the franchisee with the latest template agreements.

Simply put, a lot of bidders may not think that the likely rewards are worth either the risks or spending £10m for a low chance of winning. There are more winnable and less risky franchises coming up.

 

[Mark62]

Not everyone is tired of franchising. The sychofantic consultants are getting very rich due to the franchising process, I suspect many are direct contributors to th Conservative party. He who pays the piper calls the tune.
What a shower

 

[route:oxford]

Regardless of views on privatisation, the Railway Industry was completely unsuitable to be broken even if others are.

Not really. Considerable elements of the industry never left the private sector.

The trouble with all the mouth-foamers and the privatisation / nationalisation nonsense is that they are never entirely clear what they want. I took an elderly relative, who is radically anti NHS privatisation, to FVRH last week. Not a flicker of bother at the non-NHS equipment such as Siemens, Omron and GE that were used and quite happy to slip into M&S for a light snack.

If people truly want nationalisation of key UK infrastructure, they should start with the mobile phone networks. The mobile phone affects the lives of almost every individual over 12 every single day - the rail industry a very small proportion of that daily.

 

[Deepgreen]

If so few private companies are prepared to bid for franchises, if nothing else that suggests that the profits they are making aren't excessive...

It could just be that very few organisations are geared up for the sheer scale of the operation that is required, but those that are able to surmount that initial hurdle then do have access to very big profits...

 

[F Great Eastern]

Not really. Considerable elements of the industry never left the private sector.

The trouble with all the mouth-foamers and the privatisation / nationalisation nonsense is that they are never entirely clear what they want. I took an elderly relative, who is radically anti NHS privatisation, to FVRH last week. Not a flicker of bother at the non-NHS equipment such as Siemens, Omron and GE that were used and quite happy to slip into M&S for a light snack.

If people truly want nationalisation of key UK infrastructure, they should start with the mobile phone networks. The mobile phone affects the lives of almost every individual over 12 every single day - the rail industry a very small proportion of that daily.

To be fair though I think people who are anti privatization of the NHS are with the service provision, Siemens have an excellent reputation for diagnostic imaging equipment, as do GE.

 

[The Planner]

Not everyone is tired of franchising. The sychofantic consultants are getting very rich due to the franchising process, I suspect many are direct contributors to th Conservative party. He who pays the piper calls the tune.
What a shower

If there is no one else to contribute to the operators bidding process, what else do you expect them to do? They don't have people they can just remove from the day job to undertake the work without either replacing them or going to a consultant to do it. Do you have any evidence to back up that Arup, Atkins, WSP PB, Mott MacDoanld, Jacobs, etc etc are contributing or is it just a bit of a rant like the HS2 one?

 

[Clip]

If there is no one else to contribute to the operators bidding process, what else do you expect them to do? They don't have people they can just remove from the day job to undertake the work without either replacing them or going to a consultant to do it. Do you have any evidence to back up that Arup, Atkins, WSP PB, Mott MacDoanld, Jacobs, etc etc are contributing or is it just a bit of a rant like the HS2 one?

It did seem a weird rant given that 13 years of the 20 years of franchising involved a Labour government but at least they ranted with no clear facts, for that you can only applaud them

 

[Robertj21a]

Not everyone is tired of franchising. The sychofantic consultants are getting very rich due to the franchising process, I suspect many are direct contributors to th Conservative party. He who pays the piper calls the tune.
What a shower

Care to add any facts ?

 

[HH]

If there is no one else to contribute to the operators bidding process, what else do you expect them to do? They don't have people they can just remove from the day job to undertake the work without either replacing them or going to a consultant to do it. Do you have any evidence to back up that Arup, Atkins, WSP PB, Mott MacDoanld, Jacobs, etc etc are contributing or is it just a bit of a rant like the HS2 one?

I think we have a fine case of an empty vessel...

 

[Kettledrum]

Strikes every winter. When? As a regular user of BR I only occasionally came across striking. Indeed it was probably at similar levels to today.
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---

The incidence of striking may be similar levels to today, but wasn't the impact of a strike so much greater? With BR, the powerful unions could bring the whole network to a standstill - costing the whole economy £billions. With a divided network, a strike may affect elements of the network, but not all of it.
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---

This is a sensible question. I can think of two reasons:

1. There is a strong incumbent, who is very adept at muddying the waters around actual revenue growth in the run up to the next franchise; and

2. It's a very large TOC with lots of risk and the DfT have pushed more risk onto the franchisee with the latest template agreements.

Simply put, a lot of bidders may not think that the likely rewards are worth either the risks or spending £10m for a low chance of winning. There are more winnable and less risky franchises coming up.

Good point about the bidding costs for the TOCs. They are huge. Not that I have much sympathy for the TOCs.

- They take huge sums of money out of the system that could otherwise be used for network improvements.
- They have a really poor record of genuine infrastructure improvements (Chiltern excepted). Emphasis has always been on new vinyl being applied to the trains, and new uniforms for the staff.

 

[ChrisHogan]

The wonders of the franchised railway - daily ECS from Nottingham to Liverpool at very early am (no doubt other crazy examples exist). Main beneficiaries of franchising are probably vinyl livery makers!

This was done by Regional Railways Central (i.e. pre-franchising) to get out of Liverpool train-crew depot that was both very expensive to contract with and whose crews would refuse to work beyond Manchester at the drop of a hat (e.g. train running a few minutes late).

 

[Bletchleyite]

To be fair, it doesn't just happen on rail.

The Stagecoach X5 Oxford-Cambridge service is run from Bedford depot - this results in unidirectional evening services (only Oxford-Bedford and Cambridge-Bedford) and some early morning runs carrying fresh air.

Logic would say it should be operated jointly by the Stagecoach operations at both ends, maybe with Bedford throwing in a couple of short extras to kickstart the day's service, but allegedly Bedford won't let go of it.

Oh well

 

[coppercapped]

The incidence of striking may be similar levels to today, but wasn't the impact of a strike so much greater? With BR, the powerful unions could bring the whole network to a standstill - costing the whole economy £billions. With a divided network, a strike may affect elements of the network, but not all of it.
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---


Good point about the bidding costs for the TOCs. They are huge. Not that I have much sympathy for the TOCs.

- They take huge sums of money out of the system that could otherwise be used for network improvements.
- They have a really poor record of genuine infrastructure improvements (Chiltern excepted). Emphasis has always been on new vinyl being applied to the trains, and new uniforms for the staff.

Working backwards!

The TOCs are not expected to make or directly fund infrastructure improvements - and never were. The clue is in the name Train Operating Companies - they are not called Infrastructure Investment Companies. The infrastructure owner, Network Rail, is responsible for, and funded to pay for, the operation, maintenance, renewals, improvements and enhancements to the infrastructure. The money for these activities come from the Access Charges and the Network Grant payable directly to NR by the general taxpayer via the Treasury and the DfT.

Think of the TOCs as being the same as shops in a shopping 'mall' - they pay rent to the mall owner and the mall owner keeps the public areas clean and enhances them as necessary - adding new escalators or lifts or keeping the roof watertight. The shopkeeper does not, and is not expected to, carry out enhancements to the general structure on his own account. It is exactly the same with the TOCs.

Chiltern has not, and did not, pay directly for any infrastructure enhancements - with one exception to my knowledge. They agreed with the Railtrack/NR that certain enhancements (track re-doubling, resignalling and so on) would be funded by NR which borrowed the money and Chiltern would pay for these things by paying higher access charges. It could do so because its long franchise enabled it to justify paying the higher charges. The exception is Warwick Parkway station the construction of which was, to my understanding, paid for by Chiltern.

Regarding profits that the TOCs make. These are commercial companies and have to make profits in order to survive. That proportion of their income used for infrastructure enhancements is, as I explained above, already contained in the access charges paid to NR. The profits made are commensurate with the size of their turnovers.

Don't forget that the owning groups behind the TOCs have to post bonds totalling some £50 to £70 million in case the TOC defaults within the term of the franchise. The performance bond is there to enable the DfT to select a new operator and pay for Directly Operated Railways to run the operation in the meantime with no call on the public purse and the season ticket bond is there to ensure that any new operator gets the income from the tickets which have already been sold but still valid at the time the defaulting TOC went belly up.
There are other bonds but, as I wrote, the amounts are large which is why only large organisations have deep enough pockets to afford them. Even if the franchise runs to term the bonds are repaid several months later.

 

[Senex]

The TOCs are not expected to make or directly fund infrastructure improvements - and never were. The clue is in the name Train Operating Companies - they are not called Infrastructure Investment Companies. The infrastructure owner, Network Rail, is responsible for, and funded to pay for, the operation, maintenance, renewals, improvements and enhancements to the infrastructure. The money for these activities come from the Access Charges and the Network Grant payable directly to NR by the general taxpayer via the Treasury and the DfT.....

Chiltern has not, and did not, pay directly for any infrastructure enhancements - with one exception to my knowledge. They agreed with the Railtrack/NR that certain enhancements (track re-doubling, resignalling and so on) would be funded by NR which borrowed the money and Chiltern would pay for these things by paying higher access charges. It could do so because its long franchise enabled it to justify paying the higher charges. The exception is Warwick Parkway station the construction of which was, to my understanding, paid for by Chiltern.

Wasn't the original idea that the general pattern should be similar to Chiltern -- that where a TOC saw an infrastructure improvement as commercially viable the work would be done by RT (now NR) and the TOC would pay through those increased access charges? I have certainly seen paperwork based on that assumption in connection with the infrastructure improvements proposed (and only partially delivered) for the XC Operation Princess exercise.