More change for Network Rail

[Tom Quinne]

It’s annoyingly that “network rail” is branded as being so bad in some quarters, but no praise is given to the thousands of staff who work within the company trying to deliver projects, and the railway each day under the pressure of content bombardment of negative press.

 

[SilentGrade]

There is some fairly poor and poorly informed speculation on this thread as to what is still a very high level plan. What a shame the experts here were not involved in any consultation.

It may be a high level plan but still to me won’t address the fundamental issue of the left and right hands doing different things.

I think the placeholder for the proposed East Coast route, ‘to be defined in due course’ shows exactly that. It smacks of an uncertainty that the DfT aren’t going to completely re-jig everything with their own structure for routes/partnerships (whatever you may call them).

 

[Tom Quinne]

Wait for the uproar because the Wales Route area impinges on england

There won’t be much left of Wales route once the Valleys get taken over by Transport for Wales...

 

[pdeaves]

us Welsh are lumped in with Western.

Which, incidentally, is how it is managed today.

 

[d9009alycidon]

Why not call the regions, Scottish, Western, Southern, London Midland and Eastern, then have nice colour coded station signs for each (light blue, brown, green, maroon and dark blue perhaps)..

....tongue firmly in cheek

 

[HH]

Why not call the regions, Scottish, Western, Southern, London Midland and Eastern, then have nice colour coded station signs for each (light blue, brown, green, maroon and dark blue perhaps)..

....tongue firmly in cheek

LOL. I remember those - and not wanting to pay for them (as a TOC).

 

[Senex]

Why not call the regions, Scottish, Western, Southern, London Midland and Eastern, then have nice colour coded station signs for each (light blue, brown, green, maroon and dark blue perhaps)..

....tongue firmly in cheek

Nice idea — but please let us get away from "London Midland". Why did the Midlands and North-West of England have to be the only region stuck with a name that seemed to suggest that the only function of the railway was to connect places to London? (I know it was just the old LMS less the "Scottish", but in that case why wasn't the other side of the country the "London and Eastern Region"?)
I find it interesting that the aim seems to be for the two devolved nations to have their own NR regions, which makes sense. But if at any stage there is some real devolution in England, will we then be faced with NR regions that don't match up at all to devolved regions?

 

[hwl]

Why not call the regions, Scottish, Western, Southern, London Midland and Eastern, then have nice colour coded station signs for each (light blue, brown, green, maroon and dark blue perhaps)..

....tongue firmly in cheek

Why not light blue, ochre, green, red and yellow to match Quail cover colours

 

[swt_passenger]

I find it interesting that the aim seems to be for the two devolved nations to have their own NR regions, which makes sense. But if at any stage there is some real devolution in England, will we then be faced with NR regions that don't match up at all to devolved regions?

All the evidence so far is that Wales will not be a “region”. Wales is only a “route” like it already is.

 

[Elecman]

The region will be Western and Wales as 1 entity

 

[kieron]

At least, it will be until someone decides that it makes sense to have different people dealing with the English and Welsh stakeholders.

I am a bit confused by the map, though. Is the north end of the "East Coast Route" somewhere near Coldstream?

 

[benbristow]

I thought the Scottish 'branch' of Network Rail was separate already?

They have a separate twitter account for example.

 

[swt_passenger]

Southeast route divided into Kent and Sussex again? Weren’t Kent and Sussex only merged into one route comparatively recently?

 

[DarloRich]

I thought the Scottish 'branch' of Network Rail was separate already?

They have a separate twitter account for example.

It isn't separate. It is an alliance with scotrail

 

[bramling]

Its no wonder that it cost a fortune to run, why not just have a plan and stick with it to the end instead of keep changing things.

Because each new set of management likes to implement “fresh new ideas” and put their own scent on things. Established staff often see that this is more like a revolving door as quite often the new ideas are simply things which have been done before but which transient corporate memory has forgotten.

In my experience the bigger issue is putting in the effort and having the expertise to make things work. Reorganisations don’t achieve much positive unless there’s a very specific objective which needs to be achieved - although unfortunately that objective can often be saving money. A botched reorganisation will often cost far more in the long term - especially if the industry loses expertise and knowledge which then has to be made up by enlisting consultants!

TFL is quite bad for endless reorganisations at the moment. A “need for change” is often a smokescreen for “we can’t manage staff and situations so we’ll take a scattergun instead”.

 

[HH]

Not a fan of large scale reorganisations in general. It seems that they are highly prized in the public sector though. My wife, who works in Local Government, is going through her fourth in the last 8 years. This includes a new pay scale, which presumably will save money throughout the organisation, but in her department it would increase wages, so allegedly they can't afford to pay it, and staff will be put on a lower grade than they should be. I told her to ask whether management are also "taking one for the team".

Private companies are less keen on such things, and they only seem to happen when there has been a significant change, such as a takeover or merger.

Perhaps I'm an old cynic, but I tend to think they are popular in public companies because they give the illusion that something is being done. My view is that the problems with NR are not so much organisational as attitudinal; there tends to be a silo mentality, where information isn't shared and one group can be acting directly against the interests of another. I can't see that the new structure addresses that issue.

 

[JohnR]

I’m annoyed by the return of the word “region” to describe Scotland. Oh well.

It didnt seem to bother anyone between 1948 and 1992.

 

[Socanxdis]

I think NR should be split up and employees and assets absorbed by TOCs. This way TOC is responsible for track and signalling maintenance and this will provide an incentive for sorting out things quickly when things go wrong as they would no longer get compensated for failure.

 

[Llanigraham]

I think NR should be split up and employees and assets absorbed by TOCs. This way TOC is responsible for track and signalling maintenance and this will provide an incentive for sorting out things quickly when things go wrong as they would no longer get compensated for failure.

And how would that work when more than one TOC was running over the lines controlled by a signaller?

 

[ForTheLoveOf]

I think NR should be split up and employees and assets absorbed by TOCs. This way TOC is responsible for track and signalling maintenance and this will provide an incentive for sorting out things quickly when things go wrong as they would no longer get compensated for failure.

You're just transferring the risk if you do that. Fundamentally, there will always be risk with engineering projects - it's merely a question of who carried it. And don't think that the TOCs will take on that risk for free, they will merely adjust their bids (in an insurance-like fashion) if you ask them to take it on.

Besides, what would happen where a line is used by more than one TOC? This is an extremely common occurrence, so how do you determine who the managing TOC is?

Perhaps an innovative idea with good intentions, but probably even more unworkable (and fragmented) than the current system.

 

[DarloRich]

I think NR should be split up and employees and assets absorbed by TOCs. This way TOC is responsible for track and signalling maintenance and this will provide an incentive for sorting out things quickly when things go wrong as they would no longer get compensated for failure.

Right. If only things were that simple. On the other side, why not break up the TOC's and have their assets and employees absorbed by NR? Every reason you can think of as to why that would be a bad idea applies equally on the other side of the equation.

It’s annoyingly that “network rail” is branded as being so bad in some quarters, but no praise is given to the thousands of staff who work within the company trying to deliver projects, and the railway each day under the pressure of content bombardment of negative press.

While I agree I suspect it is because highly successful upgrade isnt news. However, I especially agree in relation to many people on this board. They should know better but I suspect that is because despite their own self importance they have a less than perfect understanding of the railway world.

In my experience the bigger issue is putting in the effort and having the expertise to make things work.

Agreed - business change and cultural change have to be delivered together to ensure success. The former is easier to achieve.

Amazing that this forum spends a significant period criticising Network Rail, but when they change to try and improve they are equally criticized!

never a truer word spoken!

 

[Highlandspring]

It didnt seem to bother anyone between 1948 and 1992.

Spoken like a true Labour (Scottish branch office) man, John!

 

[mcmad]

So how should Network Rail describe the different geographical grouping if not Regions?

 

[LNW-GW Joint]

I think NR should be split up and employees and assets absorbed by TOCs. This way TOC is responsible for track and signalling maintenance and this will provide an incentive for sorting out things quickly when things go wrong as they would no longer get compensated for failure.

That was roughly the last BR model from 1993 - just before privatisation set in, and often forgotten by the nationalisers.
The old Regions were abolished and their assets allocated to the business sector TOCs (Intercity, NSE, Regional and Freight).
But within a couple of years, before the model had a chance to prove itself, we had Railtrack imposed and the vertically integrated model vanished.
It's worth pointing out that the original private railways worked on the vertical model, charging for "foreign" access (or negotiating reciprocal swaps and running powers).
There were also a number of quite large joint lines and stations where costs and revenue were pooled.
So it can be done.

 

[infobleep]

It didnt seem to bother anyone between 1948 and 1992.

I suspect it did but social media didn't exist then like it does now.

 

[infobleep]

You're just transferring the risk if you do that. Fundamentally, there will always be risk with engineering projects - it's merely a question of who carried it. And don't think that the TOCs will take on that risk for free, they will merely adjust their bids (in an insurance-like fashion) if you ask them to take it on.

Besides, what would happen where a line is used by more than one TOC? This is an extremely common occurrence, so how do you determine who the managing TOC is?

Perhaps an innovative idea with good intentions, but probably even more unworkable (and fragmented) than the current system.

Could one not argue that if he give TOCs the ability to run a train service, there might be a risk and therefore they might increase their bids and thus we should have a private company run it?

Prior to 1948 signalling was privately owned by the TOCs. Of course they have financial issues.

Whether it would work now I don't know. I do wonder if infrastructure investment might be different if TOCs had more sway in that side of things. I mean look at Chilton Railways.

 

[Llanigraham]

That was roughly the last BR model from 1993 - just before privatisation set in, and often forgotten by the nationalisers.
The old Regions were abolished and their assets allocated to the business sector TOCs (Intercity, NSE, Regional and Freight).
But within a couple of years, before the model had a chance to prove itself, we had Railtrack imposed and the vertically integrated model vanished.
It's worth pointing out that the original private railways worked on the vertical model, charging for "foreign" access (or negotiating reciprocal swaps and running powers).
There were also a number of quite large joint lines and stations where costs and revenue were pooled.
So it can be done.

Can you please explain how a signaller at say Birmingham would be able to deal fairly and without any favouritism during a "incident" when he is employed by one TOC but will have to deal with atleast 3 others?

 

[Llanigraham]

Could one not argue that if he give TOCs the ability to run a train service, there might be a risk and therefore they might increase their bids and thus we should have a private company run it?

Prior to 1948 signalling was privately owned by the TOCs. Of course they have financial issues.

Whether it would work now I don't know. I do wonder if infrastructure investment might be different if TOCs had more sway in that side of things. I mean look at Chilton Railways.

And prior to 1948 there were plenty of examples of one companies signaller purposely delaying a competitors train over their own. Is that what you want to go back to?

 

[Lincoln]

Can you please explain how a signaller at say Birmingham would be able to deal fairly and without any favouritism during a "incident" when he is employed by one TOC but will have to deal with atleast 3 others?

Probably in a similar fashion to how TOCs which manage big stations with multiple operators look after all passenger as current.

Each Train Operating Company currently has a Station Access Agreement, which details each parties obligations to one another.

So presumably the lead ‘signalling’ TOC could have a form of Signalling Access Agreement, as part of their overall Track Access Agreement. This would be regulated by The Office of Rail & Road to ensure fair play. Basically a similar situation to what happened before, as @LNW-GW Joint pointed out.

It’d be a case of the devil being in the detail, as no structure is fundamentally impossible.

Whatever change happens, would just need to be thought through and implemented carefully.

 

[infobleep]

And prior to 1948 there were plenty of examples of one companies signaller purposely delaying a competitors train over their own. Is that what you want to go back to?

Fair point.

Playing devil's advocate, would that be better than the status quo? I. E. Yes there would be favoritism but it would be outweighed by the advantages.