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Why do most things done by Network rail cost so much?

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furnessvale

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Freight companies are private, NR is public.

I was suggesting public companies might find it harder to negotiate a good price because they have to disclose what they're already paying.

Law of unintended consequences, innit.
Exactly the point. NR buys in freight haulage from both FOCs and road hauliers. If allowed, the ability of road hauliers to obtain the rates paid by NR to FOCs, by using FOI, would be gold dust. This would be the equivalent of the common carrier rules I referred to.
 
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mike57

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And to add to this, the cycle racks at a station I use regularly are being replaced, so far it has taken 3 men 2.5 days to remove one shelter with about 8 'hoops' and move another set of 5 hoops held down with 6 rag bolts about 10m. They havn't even made good where they have damaged the concrete just barriered it off. One day they were using some expensive looking laser surveying equipment. I would be happy to have completed this in a day with just one helper, and would probably been on an 'early dart'. All part of the gravy train I suspect. No doubt the workers will be on close to minimum wage, but be charged out at some exorbitant rate. The final bill will no doubt be eye watering (And they havnt even begun to install the new shelters yet) The fragmented nature of the railway industry means that there is probably little oversight of small jobs, and as others have stated the millstone of procurement rules mean that there is no opportunity to save money and employ a small self employed contractor for small works such as this.
 
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