Nationalised rail network a step closer
By Ben Webster
THE Strategic Rail Authority took another step yesterday towards renationalising the railways by stripping train companies of the responsibility for leading the modernisation of the rail network.
The SRA abandoned plans to award a 20-year franchise to run trains over busy commuter lines in southeast England. GoVia, the company which replaced Connex on the South Central franchise last year, is instead being offered a seven-year deal which could be terminated after five years.
GoVia had been planning to secure £1.5billion of investment in the franchise to relieve overcrowding and make journeys faster and more reliable. But yesterday, almost exactly a year after the SRA said it favoured the GoVia plan, the authority said that it did not represent value for money for the taxpayer. GoVia will be relegated simply to operating a short contract.
The SRA will now be masterminding the investment, including major track upgrades on the main line to Brighton and the Arun Valley line in Sussex.
Two projects planned by GoVia, the electrification of the Ashford-to-Hastings line and the Uckfield line in Sussex, will not be going ahead. The SRA said the £150million cost could not be justified and the lines will be served instead by new diesel trains.
Richard Bowker, the SRA chairman, said: “Instead of being a train operator-led infrastructure scheme, it will be an SRA-led infrastructure scheme.” Mr Bowker admitted that the practice since privatisation of making train operators take the risk on expanding the network was being reconsidered.
“In this instance we believe the train operator taking the risk was actually very expensive. They are not necessarily the best people to take the risk.”
Under the SRA’s new policy, it will specify exactly what it wants in each franchise area and will then organise the fundraising. The work will still be carried out by private- sector companies but the reality is that the taxpayer will shoulder much more of the risk.
Mr Bowker said that train operators should concentrate on improving services rather than playing a major part in modernising the network. We want train operators to deliver the basic services. I still find it incredibly frustrating to travel on trains with dirty toilets, where they can’t keep the buffet stocked and they don’t make proper announcements. The public sector is pumping a very substantial amount of money into this network and it’s absolutely right that the taxpayer asks ‘what am I getting for that money?’ It is right that the role of specifying the work should be in the public sector, but the delivery will be by the private sector.”
Other train operators, including Stagecoach, also now face losing the long franchises that they are currently negotiating. Mr Bowker refused to confirm that Stagecoach would still be awarded a 20-year franchise for South West Trains. “We are looking at the policy on franchises and issues around what they are best at delivering,” he said.
The SRA’s decision to take control of upgrades comes as the Government prepares to replace Railtrack with Network Rail, a non-profit public-interest company.
In little more than a year the major private rail companies, Railtrack and the train operators, have either been abolished or seen their role vastly reduced.
Wendy Toms, chairman of the Rail Passengers’ Committee for Southern England, said: “Perhaps a positive outcome of having the SRA take the lead in upgrades to the infrastructure will be that the silly figures now being quoted for the cost of such work will become more realistic. We wonder whether train companies, Railtrack and engineering contractors have in the past believed that the taxpayer would pick up the bill, no matter how huge that bill was.”
posted by Charles at Tuesday, September 03, 2002
