Posted 9th October 2024 | 1 Comment
Wednesday briefing: Lobby group claims private rail operators are better value
Better value claim
The lobby group Rail Partners is claiming that private rail operators are better value for taxpayers. In its latest newsletter, RP highlights payments to the Treasury from operators worth £3.8 billion between 2010 and 2019, although this figure does not take into account the direct grants made to Network Rail, which reduced track access charges paid by operators. Rail Partners is calling for the passenger railway to be operated through concessions, which is the model used by Transport for London, rather than nationalised outright. Meanwhile, the Passenger Railway Services (Public Ownership) Bill has reached committee stage in the House of Lords, after receiving its second reading two days ago.
Belfast central station opening
Belfast’s new central station is to open on Sunday. Translink has confirmed that the the first train to depart from Belfast Grand Central will be an Enterprise service to Dublin at 08.05, and the first train to arrive will be the 08.30 from Portadown, due in at 09.15. Translink has described Grand Central as ‘the largest integrated travel hub on the island of Ireland’, with eight platforms and 26 bus stands. The station has been designed to cater for up to 20 million journeys a year.
Leaf fall timetables
Train operators are warning that the times of some trains will be changed slightly, as leaf fall timetables come into force. Southeastern said some of its services will depart a few minutes earlier from Sunday, and that it has been estimated that 50 million leaves fall on to the railway in the south east of England alone each autumn.
Reader Comments:
Views expressed in submitted comments are that of the author, and not necessarily shared by Railnews.
david C smith, Bletchley
The history of railway reorganisations has given us the "big four"( 1923), Nationalisation( 1948) and Franchising Privatisation ( mid 1990's until now ). It appears all these had problems arising, and to just go back to one of these models would be unwise.
During the BR era , possibly the greatest positive move was the inception of Sectorisation, with each Sector largely concentrating on their own management decisions. I would like to suggest that something like this, encompassing both public and private sectors might just give what is needed.
Specifically, those sectors , such as suburban / commuter operations, and general infrastructure, which are captive market natural monopolies need to be publically owned and managed , perhaps on a City region basis, with a directly elected "supremo". Sectors ( eg Intercity / long distance services and Railfreight ) may perform better acting as competing private businesses. There is then the whole business of subsidisation, which might take up too much space to fully address here, but if applied could make these TOC's and FOCs sufficiently attractive for able / gifted managers .