Scotrail and Network Rail charges

[snakeeyes]

Hi, can someone please tell me if this is true that Scotrail pays double the access charges?

 

[Clarence Yard]

The Minister in that clip was absolutely hopeless. She hadn’t a clue and blustered.

The SNP spokesman was referring to the Fixed Track Access charge (not the variable rates which are identical in both Scotland and England) which, in the words of the then Mr Justice Sullivan, is “an artificial construct”. It is the balancing sum that is required to maintain that part of the network, once variable charges and grants are deducted from the total funding need.

Scotland suffers from a large amount of need for day to day infrastructure spend with not a lot of traffic going over it’s route mileage so the variable element won’t cover the same proportion of total costs as, say, SWR. So it will need a proportionally larger Fixed Track Access charge than most, if not all, of the English operators to cover those residual NR costs in Scotland.

If both the SNP spokesman and the Minister could actually read the ORR determination for CP6 (2019-24), the details and reasons for the large FTA for Scotrail are in there.

 

[snakeeyes]

Thank you Clarence for your detailed response.

 

[Starmill]

It's an extremely bizarre question. Surely on some level they realise that what they are paying for is the continued existence of rural railways, over which there's either no or almost no freight, and very little passenger traffic. Girvan to Stranraer for example is almost forty route miles which is more difficult than average to maintain and labour-intensive to operate because of the signalling it has. This is all for the benefit of only five services each way per day, with no freight and no possibility for any. Where do they think that all of that cost goes?

I guess when your primary goal is to organise people who support Scotland leaving the UK though you get away with calling anything unjustifiable charge on Scottish taxpayers.

 

[Bill57p9]

Girvan to Stranraer for example is almost forty route miles which is more difficult than average to maintain and labour-intensive to operate because of the signalling it has. This is all for the benefit of only five services each way per day, with no freight and no possibility for any.

Down to 2 trains per day in the current reduced timetable. I dread to think what the cost per passenger is.

 

[Davester50]

I guess when your primary goal is to organise people who support Scotland leaving the UK though you get away with calling anything unjustifiable charge on Scottish taxpayers.

Far too much revolves around the constitutional question.
Greens voting for public transport cuts. Why? Constitution.
Jokers.

 

[Starmill]

Down to 2 trains per day in the current reduced timetable. I dread to think what the cost per passenger is.

Goodness. Yes.

 

[alangla]

Goodness. Yes.

£12.43 per passenger before the pandemic, but that includes the busier bit north of Girvan and the Ayr to Kilmarnock section.

https://www.scotrail.co.uk/sites/default/files/assets/download_ct/20210823/unvyb8g0C5sQnWhXVKIcsKZDpiZk8wjsQRfGj9d8GSU/scotrail_route_by_route_key_metric_assessment.pdf

See last page

 

[Dr Day]

£12.43 per passenger before the pandemic, but that includes the busier bit north of Girvan and the Ayr to Kilmarnock section.
https://www.scotrail.co.uk/sites/default/files/assets/download_ct/20210823/unvyb8g0C5sQnWhXVKIcsKZDpiZk8wjsQRfGj9d8GSU/scotrail_route_by_route_key_metric_assessment.pdf See last page

As far as I can work out, that only covers Scotrail's own costs (excluding track access), not Network Rail costs which in the overview are stated to be excluded from the analysis. So the full subsidy per passenger on any given route is considerably higher once a proportion of £600m Network Rail spend pa on maintaining and operating the infrastructure is added in.