The future ‘directing mind’ Great British Railways has been described in more detail than before as part of a consultation launched today by the Department for Transport.

Key points include that ‘passengers will travel on GBR trains, running on GBR tracks, and arrive at GBR stations – all run by the expert leadership of a single organisation in line with a clear strategic direction set by the Secretary of State’.

Some existing railway industry organisations will no longer be needed, or have new duties.

GBR will decide track access charges for the remaining third-party operators, and it will be possible for them to appeal to the Office of Rail and Road. GBR will also work ‘in close partnership’ with the private sector, while the Department for Transport will ‘step back from day-to-day involvement in the railway’.

The Office of Rail and Road will concentrate on safety and efficiency. The ORR will no longer approve access or direct the sale of access rights for the GBR railway and will not set standard access terms for GBR.

Third party operators will  have ‘fair access’ to the network, and GBR will have a statutory duty to promote rail freight. Third party ticket retailing will continue, but the industry functions currently managed by the Rail Delivery Group, including retailing, will be taken over by GBR as part of its ‘simplified sector structure’. 

There will be the promised ‘new voice for passengers’ in the shape of a new passenger watchdog which will able to hold both GBR and non-GBR operators to account.

This body would moderate unresolved passenger complaints and resolve disputes, which at the moment is the responsibility of the Rail Ombudsman. The Ombudsman could cease to do this, or alternatively it could be sponsored by the new watchdog instead of the ORR. The DfT also says there is ‘potential for the new watchdog to be built from the existing passenger watchdog Transport Focus’.

The proposed new funding process will ‘take the best of e current periodic review and control period system’, and core settlements will still last for five years. The ORR will continue to monitor business plans and the practicality of settlements.

The system of train driver training will be modernised, with ‘outdated criteria’ being modernised ‘to reflect new innovations, technology and scientific developments’.

The consultation runs until 23.59 on 15 April.

Readers’ comments

The future of UK railways depends on two big uncertainties. The first is whether the current trend to resume working at an Office rather than Home continues. In the past Rail Commuting was central to everything the Railways did, - including Staffing and Investment. And secondly how much spare cash will people have for leisure travel, - which is discretionary expenditure unlike heating and food, and can be cut back. I don't know the answers, although I suggest commuting may be at different times and days than we got used to in the past with morning and evening rush hours.

Anthony K. Pearce
Reading

I can see the proposed version of GBR seems to be largely a vehicle for a possible retreat into the 1948-1994 organisation, administered as a nationalised industry. I have been a ‘floating voter’ since the 1970s and have seen a general non-fulfilling of the promise in this type of public sector organisation. I came to a conclusion that, firstly there are some parts of the economy that can benefit from public ownership, and others that are better performing in a commercial, private sector. Nationalisation is only one form of public sector organisation, where other types can be found. My experience of the privatised rail companies has been generally better than of BR. Maybe this is due to living near the WCML, where there were two ‘good’ main line operators. Another form for the public sector would be to ‘regionalise’ local and commuter public services within a series of City Regions, each with a directly elected person (such as Manchester's mayor) to be the point for representing the public interest (one reason that parliamentary accountability could not succeed for the whole of BR being the impossibility of finding the time and resources needed). On the other hand, intercity and other long distance passenger trains would seem to be much better candidates to run as commercial open access ‘free’ enterprises, together with subsidies and charges that represent ‘hidden’ costs and benefits to these TOCs (what the economists call ‘externalities’). This two-way structure would need to be on a basis of whether a service is a captive market natural monopoly, in which case, public ownership would be necessary, otherwise private sector organisations could ‘bid’ for paths. At least this would not involve franchising, which turned out in the end to be fatally flawed. If only the new government could have been less doctrinaire, and be prepared to have more than one model of service I, for one, would have been happier. 

David C Smith, Bletchley

Let it be recalled that the Williams review was prompted by the systematic performance failure brought about by the introduction of the enhanced 2018 Thameslink & Ordsall Curve/Castlefield corridor timetables. The reports clear conclusion was that the privatisation era structure of the industry wasn't fit for purpose with too many players, DfT, franchised operators, ORR & NR etc.. contributing to performance meltdown.  In addition to the aforementioned failures the initial enhanced LNW timetable contributed to the deterioration of WCML performance before Avanti's own woes after succeeding Virgin. Add also to the mix the debacle over agreeing the ECML timetable. The simple conclusion was that the structure created by the 1993 legislation, while subsequently amended & tinkered with, was not fit for purpose. The Williams report sat with the previous government for months while ministers prevaricated as the prescription didn't fit their ideological beliefs. 

With the publication of these proposals the direction of travel is now being set for the necessary legislative changes to restructure the rail industry. Perhaps the most fundamental change is that with the with creation of GBR it will act as the 'directing mind'. Most importantly this should be seen as the railway taking back full control over it's most important product the timetable. Hopefully this should loosen the current contractually formalised bidding process allowing train planners the opportunity to flex paths to allow more optimum use of capacity. Apart from allowing the opportunity to more freely accommodate short term moves such as charters and freight it also gives commercial managers more opportunity to adjust timetables to demand outside the rigid May and Dec timetable changes.

With GBR it should also be possible to see a single set of accounts for the industry. From creation it also needs clarity over access charged for non GBR services running over the network. Perhaps the main contention will concern the charges made to current and proposed timetabled Open Access passenger operators. However in the interests of transparency the revenue side of the equation also needs to be clarified as under current revenue sharing allocation processes Open Access take a share from the 'common farebox' from shared routes. ORR may currently have a full inbox from Open Access proposals but with access set to be the prerogative of GBR time to come up with a definitive set of tariffs.               

Chris Jones-Bridger, Buckley, Flintshire

Since the ‘grouping’ in 1923, our railways have been organised as ‘top-down, pyramidal organisations’, with a quasi - military management structure. Over that period of time, there had been a steady retreat in terms of traffic levels, it seems. Nothing to do with left/right politics, either; abroad, both communist and fascist regimes tried to exercise ‘command and control’ ways of managing their railways. Since 1994, both passenger and freight traffic levels started to rise, and could have continued to rise were it not for the turmoil from Covid and international politics. Over this period, too the beneficial qualities of BR's Sectorisation became evident. Of course, Franchising was going to fail in the end, with its internal contradictions. I personally feel whatever GBR turns out like, the mechanism for the setting of objectives will be just that, and not  a vehicle for state control through the back door. Give the TOCs and FOCs freedom to innovate and be customer orientated, with the state exercising its influence through incentivising subsidies and charges, rather than through command and control.

David C. Smith, Bletchley

Having had another look at the history of The Rail Regulator and infrastructure issues of the first decade after privatisation, it is evident that the planning of train pathing was best tackled in a regime of what is now being called a "directing mind", which could be planner and arbitrater on infrastructure matters. Already, in other countries ways are being found. In particular, in Sweden, there is a structure of vertical separation together with horizontal integration, giving independent operators the use of rail, road, water infrastructure. It would be interesting to look at the Continent generally to give possible indicators for the future.  

David C. Smith, Bletchley

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